Create an Ugly Christmas Sweater for Pentatonix

Ever since the Stevie Nicks shawl callout (did you see the winning design, by the way? Amazing.) I’ve been getting e-mails from TalentHouse, and I saw another fun one that I thought knitters might be interested in.

This one is to design an ” Ugly Christmas Sweaters” for a member of the acclaimed acappella group Pentatonix. (The only problem with knitting a sweater is that the guidelines don’t indicate sizes, but it looks like the group covers a range of sizes.)

They’re releasing a Christmas album and the winning sweater will be worn by a member of the group in a music video that will be shared right before Christmas with their e-mail subscribers and on YouTube. The winning designer will also get a $1,500 prize and a shoutout on the video and in social media.

Entries must be in by December 1, and the person who gets the most votes during the selection period (the first week of December) will also receive $250 an a mention in the e-mail from Pentatonix.

This sounds like such great fun! If any of you go for it, I’d love to know about it!

[Photo via TalentHouse.]

Looking for more Christmas themed Knitting patterns? Check out some of our favorite Knitting patterns on Etsy and

These Christmas Knitting Pattern Books on Amazon

Fall will be here before we know it, and that means there are holidays coming right behind where we might be entertaining at home. It’s always fun to have a hand knit touch in your home for other people to see, and if you’re going to be in the kitchen all day you might as well have some nice knit dish cloths to use.

I love this little plaid hand towel from Darling Jadore. Use a little bit of leftover cotton yarn from another project for the plaid portion. It looks like the horizontal stripes are worked as you knit and the vertical stripes are done with duplicate stitch, making this a quick and easy project even newer knitters can make.

Combine garter stitch and an easy eyelet pattern worked sideways to make the Annette Dish Towel from Cluck Cluck Boots, which is meant to be reminiscent of flour sack towels. It calls for DK weight yarn and you can work it in one color or two (or even three!).

Add a little more texture with this set of kitchen towels from Whileberry Creative. They’re mostly worked in garter stitch with borders in easy knit/purl patterns, and you can work them in sport or worsted weight yarn.

Two of Wands Shop has another cute allover knit and purl pattern they call the Seersucker Textured Tea Towel. It’s an easy repeating pattern worked in worsted weight yarn, and there’s a chart in the pattern you can use, but don’t have to, if you want to practice knitting from a chart.

The Classic Cloth dish towel from Handmade Home by Connie is another one that can use a little leftover yarn in a contrasting color, or you could color block it our use stripes throughout the pattern. This one uses worsted weight yarn and another easy repeating knit purl stitch pattern.

If you like to hang your towel on the oven handle or elsewhere but it’s always falling off, try the Stay Put kitchen towel from Fancy Step Knits. This project is worked in garter stitch and includes a hole partway through so you can pull the towel through itself over a rod or handle. Stripes are optional but a nice addition.

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