Fashion Trends You Can Use in Your Knitting

This time of year knits, if not exactly knitting, are in the news a lot. Everyone wants to don a knit sweater, hat or accessory to stay warm and look fashionable through the season.

I’ve written before about knitting related fashion trends (giant scarves and cowls, and in general anything bulky) but today I’ve got a few more for you.

The Guardian has declared 2015 the year of the pom-pom beanie, which it describes as “one part library geek, one part glamour,” and saying “this hat channels that adorbs Instamodel thing where they go out for casual pizza nights and take squad photos looking gorgeous pulling silly faces. And you don’t even have to wash your hair.”

The examples shown in the story are mostly furry not yarn pom-poms, but of course we can make our own and add them to our own handknit hats.

Another stylish accessory of the moment we can make ourselves is the knit headband. PopSugar recently put together a slideshow of options, most of which we could easily knit ourselves. Look above to see the crazy simple knit headband from Barney’s that costs, I kid you not, $125. One case in which you can easily knit it yourself for less, even if you use cashmere. Get started with my collection of headband knitting patterns.

One knitting-related trend you might not want to DIY is sweater nails. Using gel polish and a dotting tool, you (or a trained professional, let’s be honest) can make textures on your nails that look like cabled sweaters. They’re really cute but I’m guessing I don’t have patience for such a thing. How about you? Would you do it?

Looking for more Knitted Beanie patterns? Check out these Knitting patterns we found 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.

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I’m not saying you have six different colors of super bulky yarn in your stash, but if you did, this would be a great use for it.

Anastasia’s Cardigan from Anastasia Pargett and Andi Satterlund is a cute, boxy, colorblocked cardigan with an open front that would be a fun first sweater pattern or first playing with color sweater.

It comes in 10 sizes, ranging from a chest measurement of 34 to 70 inches (that’s 86.4 to 177.8 cm for our metric friends). There’s no shaping at all except a little bit on the sleeves, so its a great choice for knitters of any skill level. The color changes are easy to do because all the pieces are worked separately and seamed together. And because there are different colors everywhere your seams don’t even have to be perfect to line up different blocks of color.

In addition to the color blocking options (which of course you could tone down if you don’t want as many color changes or don’t have that many colors) there are other ideas for customization through surface stitching. One of the versions shown here, for example, only uses five colors, while one uses contrasting yarn for the bands and more stitching to highlight the color changes on the sleeves.

If you don’t happen to have a ton of super bulky yarn on hand, you could make this an odd ball project by working multiple strands of worsted or other weights of yarn held together. Change colors when the pattern suggests or just whenever you run out of yarn to make it colorful and fun to knit and wear.

The pattern is available for free from Knit Picks, where you can also make yourself a kit using the suggested Fluff of the Andes yarn, a singles yarn made of Peruvian Highland wool that’s available in 26 colors.

[Photo via Knit Picks]

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