Add Adorable Animals to Your Sweaters and Hats

April 8, 2026 by Sarah White

With the vast collection of handknits I have, I don’t have a lot of colorwork sweaters (and no colorwork hats that I regularly wear). And when you look at the colorwork, there’s not a lot that I’d consider fun.

That’s really sad, because there are a lot of great whimsical colorwork knitting patterns out there. Today I’d like to introduce you to two of them. Or really four of them.

Vicky Chan has two sets of really cute colorwork designs that include a matching hat and sweater: Averie and Fiona (all links ahead point to Ravelry, FYI).

Averie is a sweater and hat pattern that feature fern fronds, flowers and a little bird. Fiona is a similar design, except here the bird has been replaced by a cat

All of the designs use worsted weight yarn. The hats come in one size and start with a provisional cat on so that the colorwork can be knit from the top down and the rest of the hat from the bottom up. The colorwork portion of all the patterns is charted. Because there are some long floats, instructions are given both for trapping floats and using ladder back jaquard if you prefer.

The sweaters have seven size options, but the largest size is on 56 inches/142 cm, and the design is intended to be worn with 2-8 inches (5-20 cm) of positive ease, which lowers that sizing even more.

But if you do happen to fall into that range of sizes (the smallest one is 32 inches or 81 cm) these sweaters are super cute. It might be fun to work the cats or birds in a different color from the rest of the colorwork (though that would involve even more long floats) or to use a multicolored yarn for the colorwork. There’s one in the Fiona sweater patterns that added color to the cat so check that out if it’s something you want to try!

[Photos: Vicky Chan]

Have you read?

Knit a Log Cabin Blanket with All Your Scraps

I guess I must have had this pattern on my mind, because I had chosen this log cabin blanket recipe to write about, promptly forgot about it and a couple of weeks later started knitting a log cabin blanket using all my pink yarn.

It might stay pink if it makes it to baby blanket sized, or I might add in some pastel green and blue, too, to make a bigger blanket. We’ll see. I’m also holding several strands of yarn together to make a kind of bulky yarn, which means it’s deeply satisfying how much yarn is used even as the project is still relatively small.

In Kristen Finlay’s version, DK weight yarn scraps (or fingering/sock yarn held double) are used to make a simple scrappy log cabin blanket that’s lighter weight than my version. Log cabin is a great technique for knitters of any skill level because it’s worked in garter stitch. The only not completely basic technique you need for log cabin knitting is picking up stitches.

If you’ve never worked a log cabin knitting project before, this is a good introduction, and it is really nice to use all your yarn scraps in one big project you’ll use for years to come.

If you use a lot of DK weight yarn you can keep building on it whenever you finish a project, or if you use more worsted weight you can do the same thing with it, it will just be a little bigger starting out than the pattern calls for. How big it gets is totally up to you.

I have really been enjoying working on my log cabin project, and it’s my current sitting at my desk and need a break knit (do you have one of those or is it just me?).

Ready to start your own log cabin blanket knitting project? You can grab the free pattern from Kristen Finlay on Ravelry.

Need more log cabin inspiration? Check out more log cabin knitting patterns.

[Photo: Kristen Finlay]