Are You Ready for Some Football Knitting?

I imagine there are lots of knitters who are football fans, or who live with football fans and end up spending a lot of time this time of year watching football.

It either of those is you, designer Michelle Hunter and Skacel have a great project for you. Known as the Scoreboard Knitalong, the project takes all of football season to knit a Stockinette Stitch loop cowl (the official pattern will be released Sept. 3), with each round representing a point scored in a game.

You work it in your team colors, choose one color to represent your team and the other to represent the opponent. Then you work one round for each point (and optional third color breaks up the stripes between games).

The chosen yarn is HiKoo Simplicity, a superwash merino/acrylic/nylon blend that comes in more than 60 solid colors (some suggestions for professional and a few college team color combinations can be found on the supplies page). It’s worked on size 7 US (4.5 mm) circular needles.

This project sounds like a lot of fun and will give you something to do if you’re going to be watching all the games anyway. Just make sure you have another project at the ready for those low-scoring times.

Does this sound like a project you’d like to do? Are you a football fan or is someone else in your household? I’d love to hear about it!

[Photo via Scoreboard KAL.]

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Blankets are a great blank slate project that you can change up in a million different ways. From color to stitch pattern to size, the possibilities are almost endless.

Jared Flood, the designer behind Brooklyn Tweed, was inspired by a log cabin quilt his mother made in 1995 to re-create that design in knitting, which led to more blankets and ultimate Brooklyn Tweed’s Knit and Crochet Blankets, which includes 25 patterns from an array of designers using different skills and techniques to make cozy, pretty blankets.

The patterns are divided into three aesthetic themes: traditions, minimalism and colorplay. The patterns are rated on a scale of one to five, with one being the easiest, and there aren’t any pieces rated five. Two blankets are rated one, 14 are two, eight are three and one is four.

In addition, three of the 25 patterns are crocheted, but they either use single crochet or granny stitch, so they are pretty easy even if you don’t do a lot of crochet. You can see all the patterns on Ravelry.

Some of my favorites include Rattan by Rastus Hsu, a chunky blanket worked in knits and purls with simple crossing stitches to make a raised woven look; Homewood by Seth Richardson, covers in dramatic, loopy cables; Ainur Berkimbayeva’s Tessellate, one of the beginner projects that doesn’t really look beginner but is totally worked in knit and purl stitches; Warp + Weft by Aist? Butkevi?ien?, which is mostly knits and purls but makes a fun woven look fabric that blew my mind a little bit; and the same designer’s Canyonland, a multicolored blanket with wavy stripes.

The patterns tell you how to resize them for different dimensions and include information on pattern repeats where it is possible to make a totally custom size.

Many different techniques are included here such as cables, lace, shadow knitting, intarsia and other colorwork techniques, as well as modular knitting and lots of sewing pieces together. The patterns are all presented with charts, but there are line by line written instructions available on the Brooklyn Tweed website if you need them.

The book ends with a deep dive into log cabin knitting, telling the story of the quilt Jared’s mom made and how he made it in knitting, as well as the multitude of variations you can make if you want your own log cabin style design.

The back of the book includes a little written information about some of the special techniques needed, but there are no photos.

This is a lovely book full of inspiration for knitting and crochet blankets for any skill level. If you like to make blankets as gifts or aspire to have a handmade blanket in every room of the house, these designs would be a great place to start.

About the book: 192 pages, paperback, 25 patterns. Published 2024 by Abrams Books, suggested retail price $24.99.

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