An Easy Heart Knitting Pattern for You

Years and years ago, before I even started writing here (and that was a LONG time ago!) I wrote the knitting page for a long-gone website called About.com. It was great fun and I wrote a lot of basic knitting patterns for that site, which are now lost to the ages (or nearly impossible to find in the depths of the Internet Archive).

I had a reader from the old days reach out to me asking about a particular pattern for a knit heart that I had posted many (MANY) years ago that she couldn’t find online any more. She noted that she liked the design of working from the bottom up and wanted to use them as sympathy gifts with an angel charm attached, as well as for other occasions.

Well I couldn’t possibly ignore such a heartfelt request, so after we dug up a very old version of the pattern from About, I decided to re-knit it and redo the instructions so that she and I and anyone else who might want to knit it could have it.

I have made so many of these hearts through the years. They use bulky yarn so they’re pretty fast to knit, and if you’re a new knitter you get some good practice working increases and decreases. I made these for teacher gifts for years, or to show appreciation to other people, and they’re just a cute little thing to make for Valentine’s Day, use as a pincushion, make a cat toy, or use a single heart as a coaster, applique, on a card…so many options.

It’s also great to make with any weight of yarn you have handy. You can hold two strands of worsted weight yarn together, add in some mohair, make stripes, whatever you want. I made a hundred versions and they’re all cute.

You can grab the pattern at Our Daily Craft. I hope you enjoy it as much as we have through the years!

A Half Dozen (Or So) Hearts to Knit

Knitting Patterns- Knit a Scarf with Hearts

Not too long ago I did a test knit for another designer that was for a cabled cardigan. It’s really cozy and nice but it just about broke me in a ton of different ways. I couldn’t get gauge, which I suppose is my own problem, but mainly I was somehow both bored and forced to pay attention at the same time.

Because it used the same cable all over, I always had to know what row I was on, but nine out of ten of those rows, nothing in particular was going on. So I couldn’t stop paying attention, but what I needed to attend to was boring.

It may have ruined me for knitting cabled sweaters, but maybe I just need something that’s more engaging. Like this Modern Aran Cardigan pattern from Lion Brand Yarn.

This is a reworking of an old pattern from their archives, and you can tell that form the classic look of the cables and the oversized feel (nothing cropped about this one!). It has allover cables, but like a classic Aran sweater it’s not the same cable, so you’ll have to pay attention to what row you’re on and what cable turns happen for which cables on that row.

Because of this, it’s considered an intermediate knitting pattern, but if you’re comfortable working from multiple charts at once it shouldn’t be a problem for you. There are three different charts and seven different cable moves.

Also because the pattern is so big and boxy there are only two sizes available, with a finished chest measurement of either 49 or 63 inches (that’s 124.5 or 160 cm). It’s up to you to decide how much ease you would like and whether that will work for your body.

The pattern uses worsted weight yarn (and calls for another classic, Lion Brand Fisherman’s Wool). It calls for six buttons and includes pockets to make it extra cozy.

This one looks like a great winter project to make and to wear if you’re up for a bit of a challenge. You can grab the free pattern or buy a kit with the yarn needed direct from Lion Brand Yarn.

[Photo: Lion Brand Yarn]

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