Easy Projects to Knit for Father’s Day

If you’re looking for something to knit for a dad in your life, check out this list of easy Father’s Day knitting patterns (which of course would be fine to knit for any other occasion).

I wanted to offer a mix of kinds of projects so you can make something that the guy in your life will like without being too stereotypical about what dads are supposed to like.

This basketweave vest from Red Heart/Yarnspirations is easy to knit and a classic style, available in five sizes, free pattern.

The Morton Street Scarf is a pretty Garter Stitch pattern from Lion Brand where the yarn really makes the project shine. You can use whatever multicolored yarn you have on hand or even make an odd ball using scraps to knit this project. Free pattern.

Dana Addy’s Campwear Hat for KnitPicks is a cute and easy-to-knit design for the whole family. Inspired by enamel camping mugs, you can knit one for dad and for all his favorite little campers.

Port is a classic “grandpa” cardigan designed by Amy Christoffers for Berroco. It comes in 7 sizes and has a zipper closure and patch pockets.

A pair of knit gloves is an awesome gift for anyone, and Julie Old Crow has a great, easy and super warm pattern for men’s gloves in her Etsy shop.

Knitting a tie is immensely better than buying dad a tie, and this free pattern from Universal Yarns by Rachel Brockman looks great and is easy to knit.

And because of course your dad is number one in your heart, maybe you should just knit him a washcloth with that sentiment? This free pattern is from Kris Knits.

Do you have a favorite project to knit for the guys in your life? I’d love to hear about it!

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]

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