Bold Ribbed Shrug Knitting Pattern

The other day I shared a bunch of ribbed hat knitting patterns, but of course ribbing is great for lots of other projects, too. Ribbing automatically gives anything a structured look, and it’s a great choice when you need stretch in some areas of a project.

The Simple Ribbed Shrug from Purl Soho is a great example of the beauty of a simple ribbed project.

Worked from the top down in 2×2 ribbing, this project would actually be pretty good practice for knitting a top-down sweater if you’ve never done that before. It has a sort of turtleneck top with raglan increases worked to shape the shoulders. Then the body is worked straight to your desired length.

Unlike a sweater, there’s not separating out stitches for sleeves (and no sleeves to knit, which is kind of the worst part of knitting a sweater), and the body is over before you get bored trying to get to the right length.

The project has five size options, measured around the arms and chest. The body circumferences (your actual body) range from 36 to 66 inches (91.5 to 167.5 cm) and it is intended to be worn with 6 to 12 inches/15 to 30.5 cm of negative ease.

We usually talk about positive ease in knitting patterns, but negative ease means that the garment is actually smaller than the body it’s intended to cover. Because this is ribbed, it will stretch nicely and open up the ribbed stitches for an even more dramatic effect.

I love the idea of this as an extra layer tucked into your coat, or something you can throw over your pajamas for a Zoom meeting and it looks like you’re wearing a sweater.

Wherever you want to wear it, it calls for a DK or light worsted weight yarn. The sample is a blend of merino and organic cotton, but I think straight wool would be great for this one, too.

You can grab the free pattern at Purl Soho.

[Photo: Purl Soho]

Over the years I have shared a lot of pumpkin knitting patterns, and I’ve knit and crocheted a lot of pumpkins myself. But it feels like there are always more fun things to try with knit pumpkins, so this year I wanted to look a little more beyond basic stockinette or ribbed pumpkins and share some pumpkin patterns with cables, bobbles and colorwork.

In the cable collection we’ve got these cute little basic cable and ribbed pumpkins from Elly Bear Knits. There are two sizes that make a wide, flat pumpkin and a taller round pumpkin. Both are worked in the round as a tube that’s cinched top and bottom when you’re done, and they use bulky weight yarn.

Another cute cable pumpkin knitting pattern comes from Gray Bear Akswokrat. This one is knit flat and it looks like a chunky yarn but you could use other weights to make pumpkins of different sizes. This one also has an I-cord stem and uses yarn to cinch up the sections of the pumpkin, giving it a more natural look.

Add some bobbles to your pumpkins with this design from Autumn Shelter Makes. Also worked in the round in a tube, it features a repeating pattern of bobbles and uses yarn wrapped around the outside to make segments. This one looks like worsted weight yarn to me.

Of course there’s nothing that says your pumpkin has to be a single color, so let’s throw in some colorwork. I love the look of the Cozy Fall Pumpkin knitting pattern from South Stitch Girls. The little leather loop adds a rustic touch but you could also just add a stick. These pumpkins have five colorwork options and are worked in worsted weight yarn in the round.

There’s also the Autumn Fair Isle Trio pumpkins pattern from Equestriann Style, which has three different sizes of pumpkins with four colorwork designs. They are worked in super bulky yarn in the round and look good with high contrast or more muted color combinations.

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