Knitting

Free Patterns, Tutorials and Project Ideas

Barbie-Inspired Knitting Patterns

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It feels like we’re living in a pink world right now, so it’s high time to knit some pink projects, correct? Of course any knitting project can be worked in pink if you want, but I thought it would be fun to find some projects that are already pretty in pink or specifically designed to be inspired by our favorite plastic icon. (Knits for Barbie herself coming soon!)

For example, the Barbie Crop Top by Maral Mokri. This DK weight, top down, circular yoke sweater is covered with Barbie-inspired colorwork, including flowers, high-heeled shoes and handbags. It comes in nine sizes with a chest measurement up to 67 inches, and you can find the pattern on Ravelry.

Fiona Stevenson’s C’mon Barbie hat (a free download on Ravelry) uses worsted weight and fingering yarn held together for a bulky weight look. It has a stitch pattern made of ribbing and slip stitches and its easy to adjust the size to fit any Barbie or Ken.

This pink and white gingham top from Muki Crafts on Etsy is super cute and easy to stitch up. It has a buffalo plaid pattern worked in two colors and a cropped style, though of course you can make yours longer. It has five sizes for kids and four for adults.

Yarnspirations did a Life in Plastic pattern roundup (if you click the link and it’s showing both knitting and crochet patterns, you can filter for knitting on the left hand side of the page). The knitting patterns include a pink bias knit scarf, scrunchies, a striped sweater and a pair of legwarmers.

The Pink Shell from DROPS is another one I think Barbie would approve of, with its simple textured pattern and fun halter top shape. It comes in six sizes and is worked from the bottom up in cotton yarn.

And then there’s this cardigan called The Pink One. Designed by Lily Kate France and available on Ravelry, it features poufy, textured sleeves on a simple body. It calls for a DK weight and a mohair yarn to amp up the texture. Instructions are given for cropped and standard length, and it comes in nine sizes up to a 62 inch chest measurement (it’s meant to be worn with 8-10 inches of positive ease).

 

Have you read?

Knit a Leopard Print Shawl and Learn about Yarn Substitution

When I was looking around for free knitting patterns to share recently, I came across this fun leopard print wrap from Yarnspirations. 

This fun bulky wrap gives you tons of practice with instarsia and makes a bold statement while keeping you warm. It’s rated for intermediate knitters and the design is charted but pretty easy to follow. And it’s only 50 rows and worked in bulky yarn, so it wouldn’t even take that long to knit. (You can grab the free pattern from Yarnspirations.)

So what’s the problem? The yarn that the pattern calls for has been discontinued, and it’s not a yarn that a substitute for immediately springs to mind. 

The original yarn was Patons Alpaca Blend, a single ply bulky yarn that was a combination of acrylic, superwash wool, nylon and alpaca. 

My first thought was Lion Brand Hue + Me, which is an acrylic and wool blend, with two plies instead of a single. It looks like it has the colors you would need to make this fun shawl. 

But as I was thinking about it, I thought this would be a good opportunity to introduce you to YarnSub if you don’t already know about it. This website is a giant database of yarn that can consider the qualities of the yarn you want to substitute and offer potential substitutions. 

It’s not only thinking about yarn weight, like I was, but also fiber content, number of plies, gauge and even the difference in yardage between one ball and another. It even looks at the price and can be filtered by your price range or preferences about fiber content (if, say, you’re sensitive or allergic to wool, for example, or don’t want to you acrylic). 

When I plugged in Alpaca Blend, it gave me a lot of different options, though many of them were self-striping or multicolored, which wouldn’t work for this project, and I don’t see a way to filter for solid colors only. 

Still, it’s a good tool to give you some ideas you might not know about or might have forgotten about, and it tells you how the new yarn is similar to the old one and how it differs, allowing you to make smarter choices when substituting yarns. 

[Photo: Yarnspirations]