Knitting

Patterns, projects and techniques

Do You Know the Velvet Acorn?

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velvet acorn designsIf you’ve ever looked at knitting or crochet patterns on Pinterest, you’ve probably seen patterns from the Velvet Acorn.

Designer Heidi May has hundreds of patterns she sells on etsy, which are inspired by nature and styled beautifully and usually pictured on super adorable kids (though her patterns are sized from littles through adults). You can also check them out at a glance on Pinterest.

She does a lot of hats and scarves, but also totally cute pullovers like the Azel Pullover, which uses super bulky yarn and is a super simple knit no matter what size you make. She’s also the designer behind adorable head gear like the Burton Bear Cowl and the Failynn Fox Cowl, both of which I would totally make for my daughter and me.

Her patterns are priced at $5.50 each, and most of them use bulky yarn and simple stitches for quick work that you’ll love to make and wear or gift to a little one in your life.

Have you ever knit (or pinned) any of these patterns? I’d love to hear about it! And if you are or know a great knitwear designer you’d like to see featured, let me know!

[Photos via the Velvet Acorn on etsy.]

Looking to buy your Yarn online? Check out these online yarn specials.

Specific to knitters, you can join our Knitting Patterns Only group to get, well, knitting patterns, ask questions and gain inspiration for what to knit next.

Check out these books dedicated to Knitted Cowl Patterns still looking for more cowl patterns? Check these out on Etsy.

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Comments

  2. Her patterns are great! I have knit one before and the directions are very good and her designs awesome!

Have you read?

Make Your Knitting Machine Scarves Better

I feel like it’s been a while since I’ve shared any patterns for our circular knitting machine users. I know these devices aren’t for everyone but even though I much prefer knitting by hand, it is kind of fun to crank things out on these machines.

One of the most common early projects for a circular knitting machine is a scarf. Which makes sense, because it’s just one long tube and you can make it as long as you like.

One problem that comes from knitting scarves on the circular knitting machine, though, is that it can be hard to know how to finish the ends of the tube so that it looks like a finished scarf and not a tube of knitting.

If you’re not a knitter or crocheter, the most basic way to finish a circular knitting machine scarf is just by cinching up the ends and maybe adding a pompom to each end to cover up any hole that might still be visible at the end.

But if you have a little knitting or crochet skill or are willing to learn, there are a lot of different options for closing up the ends of a scarf. And this would also be true if you hand knit a tube scarf!

I recently wrote a post over at Our Daily Craft that includes five different ways to close up the ends of a tube scarf:

  • the simple cinching method mentioned above
  • sewing the stitches together
  • three needle bind off
  • grafting
  • crochet bind off

Grafting is my favorite because I feel like it gives the cleanest, closest to a seamless look. If you’re a knitter you may already know how to do it but even if you don’t it’s not that hard to learn.

Do you knit tube scarves by hand or machine? I’d love to know how you like to finish them!