Celebrate Color with the Minas Sweater

One of the hardest things about winter for me is the lack of color. It’s like the whole world ran out of toner, and often our clothes reflect the muted landscape outside, which just makes everything more drab.

This year I’m trying to use and wear all the fun colors of yarn I have in my stash, and I think the Minas Sweater from Cecilia Lalanne & Gabriella Calderini for Manos del Uruguay would be a great way to use a lot of colorful yarn on a sweet sweater.

This cropped sweater uses 1×1 stranded colorwork where the colors change as you work the pattern, which makes it look more complex than it is. The project calls for five colors of worsted weight yarn, but you could probably even use more (or use a multicolored yarn as one or some of your options) to bring even more color to the party.

It’s a simple drop shoulder crewneck with straight sleeves, so pretty much all you have to focus on is changing your colors when you need to.

There are seven size options in the pattern, ranging from a bust circumference (on the sweater, not the wearer) from 42.75 to 69.25 inches, or 108.5 to 176 cm. It’s intended to be worn with around 8 inches or 20 cm of positive ease for a casual, oversized look.

You can go bold with the color choices like the sample shown here, or pick a couple of more neutral colors to combine with some brighter shades if that’s more your style. Either way this project should be as easy to knit as it is fun to wear. And of course those bright colors make me think a teenager in your life might love it, but of course there’s no rule that says you have to stop wearing fun colors at a certain age. Thank goodness.

The pattern is free to download from Ravelry and is available in both English and Spanish.

[Photo: Cecilia Lalanne & Gabriella Calderini]

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Linen stitch is one of my favorite knitting stitch patterns that, every time I use it in a project, I think about how I don’t use it often enough.

It’s an easy stitch to make, with slip stitches done with the yarn held to the front of the work on the right/front side and to the back on the wrong/back side, which makes the strand of yarn a visible part of the pattern.

It also makes a fabric that is thick and looks kind of like a woven fabric.

I recently used linen stitch to make a double-thick pot holder, which I worked in a kind of interesting way. I didn’t want to have to do any sewing on the project, so I started it from a crochet cast on and picked up stitches from the side of the cast on to make the hot pad all in one piece in the round with the edge sealed.

This requires working on two circular needles, which is another technique I don’t use that often and am always reminded how much I like it when I do.

The combination of double thickness and the stitch pattern makes for a hot pad that’s already pretty thick, but I also added a bit of old towel to the inside before I closed up the end to make it super thick and extra protective for your surfaces.

I found the engineering challenge of this construction method to be a lot of fun, but you could also just knit it as a tube (casting on twice as many stitches as I did) and sew up the ends by hand when the knitting is done. Either way you’ve got a useful and pretty addition to your kitchen, whether you work it in a solid color, stripes or as a stash busting project will all your cotton odd balls.

You can grab the pattern over at Our Daily Craft, or check it out on Ravelry.

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