Fade Your Pattern with This Fun Sweater Knitting Pattern

I love the idea behind the Igneous Sweater from Knitting Expat Designs. We probably all know about the trend of fading yarns to produce an ombre effect or just to combine colors in a harmonious way in a project, but have you ever thought about “fading” the stitch pattern in a project?

That’s what she did in this design, and it’s really pretty cool. The pattern starts allover the bottom of the sweater and fades to Stockinette at the top. You could probably fade colors as you went, too, if you wanted, though the effect in a single semisolid yarn is nice, too.

The design comes in 14 sizes ranging from a chest measurement of 32 inches to 66.5 inches and was designed to have 4 or 5 inches of positive ease.

The base price on Ravelry is £10 but there are codes on the pattern page for a pay what works system. (You can also buy it on Etsy if Ravelry isn’t working for you right now.)

[Photo: Knitting Expat Designs.]

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I feel like I haven’t shared many knitting machine patterns lately, probably because I haven’t been using my knitting machines much lately. (I finally made space for them to live on the bookshelf in my office, and now that they have a “place” it’s almost like I forgot they existed for a while.)

But I did recently make a little cat bed, that surely would work for a small dog, too.

This one uses two different sizes of knitting machine: a larger one (it could be any in the 40-48 needle range) and a 22 pin.

The larger machine is used in flat panel mode to make the bottom pillow like part of the bed, while the smaller machine makes a long tube that is used around the edges as the sort of walls of the cat bed.

For stuffing I used a bit of leftover quilt batting for the pillow, and some cut up old T-shirts for the tube.

You can use any worsted weight yarn you like (I used two colors of Big Twist Pound+, which comes in huge skeins that weigh more than a pound). Acrylic or cotton yarn is nice for washablity, but you’ll be cranking for a while so make sure you use a yarn your machine likes so it’s not too much of a struggle.

You can grab the pattern for this cat bed over at Our Daily Craft. I’m sorry to report the pictured is as close as a cat has gotten to it so far, but maybe your cats like to be cozy more than mine do?

If you’re looking for more options for cute handmade places for your cats and little dogs to rest, check out this roundup of knit pet beds. I still want to knit one by hand but the machine version was definitely a faster option (especially good since my cats are ungrateful).

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