Giant Knitting is Big

There are lots of different ways to knit, using needles, a loom, your fingers or your hands. And there are lots of scales on which you can knit, from teeny tiny projects that might fit a mouse to human-scaled objects and gigantic projects literally worked on broomsticks or bigger needles.

This story is on the big side. Huffington Post recently wrote a story about knitting on a large scale, and though the lede paragraph is horrid (knitting is the new black and a reference to rocking chairs in just two sentences), it is interesting to see the giant blankets and other projects that can be made when you work with giant yarn and needles.

While the story is mostly talking about projects that are so big they wouldn’t use even conventional jumbo yarns and needles, this is a trend we can all try on a slightly smaller scale by using really big yarn and needles, holding multiple strands of yarn together to make a larger yarn or even doing arm knitting, which makes much bigger stitches than you can get with standard needles.

Do you like the big knitting trend? Have you knit with jumbo yarns? This time of year is a great time to consider it if you still have gift knitting to do!

[Photo from Instagram user lilyandpeabody, via Huffington Post.]

One of the fun things about knitters is that we will use a holiday theme on any kind of project. From Easter bunny socks to Christmas sweaters, there’s no combination of holiday motif and knitwear genre we won’t combine.

Case in point: Halloween cowls.

This fun cowl from Sweet Vireo Designs features large carved pumpkins and little cats and skulls. It uses two colors of DK weight yarn and I love the multicolored yarn for the background color on this one. And the braids! So cute.

Spooky Season by Jocelyn Tunney (also on Ravelry) uses fingering weight yarn in two colors to make a design with crescent moons and eyes. There are two circumferences and two heights available so you can make it a neck hugger or a slightly bigger project if you like.

Make more moons with the Broom Riding Cowl from Vanessa Ewing Knits. This two color pattern looks extra fun with a multicolored yarn for the colorwork, but you can use a solid as well. It calls for DK weight yarn but there is also a fingering weight version if you have some yarn in your stash you want to use.

Jinx Made has another fun Halloween cowl, this time covered in skulls. South Philly Skulls uses DK weight yarn and comes in two lengths, and there’s also a matching hat pattern, both of which can be found on Ravelry.

The Ghost Stories cowl from Melissa Knit Wear is a two-color cowl with ghosts of different sizes on the body. It uses DK weight yarn, and average sized skeins will allow you to get two cowls out of two skeins. It also calls for stitch markers to help you keep your place in the chart.

Or stitch up a cowl with a giant bat on it. The Nightling Cowl from Jen Immer uses DK weight yarn in two colors and has moons and a large bat on it. This pattern can be found on Ravelry.

How about spooky trees? The Weirwood Cowl from Andrea Krüß-Anders is inspired by the weirwood trees in the Game of Thrones books, and is worked in two colors of fingering weight yarn. You can find this free pattern on Ravelry.

If a bandana cowl is more your thing, try Cowloween from Tellybean Knits (on Ravelry). This colorful design is worked from the top down and features pumpkins, ghosts and candy colored stripes, and is worked in a light fingering weight yarn. There are kid and adult sizes available.

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