Happy Year of the Horse!

It’s officially the Year of the Horse in the Chinese zodiac, so I thought it might be fun to take a look at some knitting patterns that incorporate horses.

How about a knit hobby horse? Of course! Here’s one from Destany Fenton that has lots of great pictures. Or knit a hobby horse washcloth with this pattern form Smariek Knits.

You can knit an actual horse with help from the post How to Knit a Horse by womantalk, the Dream Toys horse pattern from Claire Garland and the Self-Supporting Knit Horse from Tricoty (translation).

If you’re looking for kid’s hats that look like horses, check out Horsing Around by NimCraft and the horse among Barbara Bazzocchi’s hats for kids patterns.

Kimberly Kwan’s Horse Illusion Knit would make a fun scarf or washcloth.

Knit a big felted bag with a horse on the side via the Berroco pattern Hippodrome, designed by Lina De Montigny.

DROPS Design has a cute kid’s sweater with a horse head on the front, while Susan Springett has the Wild Horses Vest on Ravelry and Crochet Knit Wits has an awesome double-knit scarf with horses running along the length.

Happy New Year to all my fellow Horses and everyone else out there!

Next Pattern:

If you’re looking for a sweater knitting pattern that uses up some of your stash and allows you to make just the sweater you want, the Marlina Rib by Shay Johson might be just the thing.

It’s worked with two strands of fingering weight yarn held together to make a DK weight gauge, so you can use the same two yarns throughout or change one or both regularly for an even more colorful look.

The pattern has options to make it either a crewneck or a henley style with buttons, tapered or relaxed sleeves, and a straight hemline or a split hem with buttons (which sounds so cute if you do the henley with split hem and match the buttons on both parts).

It’s also knit from the top down so you can make the body and the sleeves as long as you want. There are 10 sizes available in the pattern, with a chest circumference ranging from 32 to 68 inches, or 81.5 to 172.5 cm. It’s meant to be worn with 4-6 inches/10-15 cm of positive ease at the chest.

The pattern page on Ravelry includes tons of measurements and yardage estimates so you can make sure you’ll get a good fit for your body before you even buy the pattern. Shay also shows a few variations of the sweater so you can see how different options look before you decide how you want to put them together.

The stitch pattern is 1×2 ribbing, which is really easy to do and gives a look almost like fisherman’s rib that’s relaxed and easy to wear.

This sweater looks like a great option for people who are somewhat new to sweater knitting or those who love to have lots of customization options (because it’s like getting multiple sweater patterns in one!).

Check out all the details and grab a copy of the pattern for yourself at Ravelry.

[Photo: Shay Johnson]

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