An Easy Sleeve for Summer Sweaters

I enjoy knitting sweaters and tops, but I will admit that I’m not a huge fan of knitting sleeves. For one thing, I always seem to knit one a few rows longer than the other, even when I’m counting carefully. For another, getting the sleeve to fit into the armhole is not always an easy feat.

Lately I’ve been knitting top-down style sleeves on just about everything. You pick up stitches all the way around but then work short rows across progressively longer sections of the top of the sleeve to form the cap that goes over the shoulder. Then you join in the round and work the rest of the sleeve down as long as you need it to go.

But this idea from Jordana Paige is also intriguing. She calls it the Magic Sleeve and says it works for drop shoulder, modified drop shoulder and set in sleeve patterns. It starts with picking up stitches and knitting flat for half the armhole width, and then is worked in the round for the remainder. You have to sew up the underarm seam when you’re done but it’s pretty simple and makes a nice little casual sleeve for a summery top.

Looking for more summer top knitting patterns? Check these out.

How do you deal with sleeves? I’d love to hear your favorite methods.

[Photo via Jordana Paige.]

I’ve kind of fallen into a loom knitting rabbit hole lately. Long story short, I got burned out a needle knitting, so I figured loom knitting would be similar but not the same, and I am enjoying it, although it is slower than knitting with needles for sure (that might also be a good thing right now).

Most people start their loom knitting adventures making a hat (Marching North has a great basic beanie pattern that’s sized from preemies up to large adults, depending on the size of loom you use) or a scarf, where you just knit in rounds until you have a piece long enough to be a scarf, the sew the ends closed.

But there’s a lot more you can do, even as a person who is new to loom knitting, so let’s check out some more fun loom knitting patterns.

The first thing I made when I picked up a loom again was a couple of knit pumpkins. This is a super simple and fast project, and if you know me, you know I can’t get enough pumpkins (they are everywhere in my house this time of year!).

If you want to add a little cuteness to your loom knit hats for kids, check out the fruit hats from 5 Little Monsters. These don’t include a pattern but you can use your regular hat pattern and add the details.

Knitting looms are typically used in the round, which makes a stitch that looks like stockinette stitch, but you can also work flat and use a purl stitch to make fabric that looks like garter stitch. I want to try this garter stitch scarf from Loom a Hat (which I’m sure has lots more great projects you can try!).

And once you know how to purl you can also knit ribbing, so you can make projects like this loom knit coffee cup cozy from Good Knit Kisses. It reminds me of my Halloween coffee cup cozy, and since it’s knit flat you could duplicate stitch a face or anything else you want on there.)

Another easy flat knit project is this twisted headband from Marching North. It’s worked flat then joined into a loop, twisted and seamed. There are good photos in the post to show you what to do. And because it uses super bulky yarn it works up super fast.

Every time I went looking for loom knitting patterns I would run into this loom knit pickle pattern from One Little Project, so you have to see it, too. This would be a fun one if your family does a Christmas pickle ornament, though it’s worked with blanket yarn so it comes out pretty big.

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