Ideas for Craft Fairs and a Cute Christmas Project

November 5, 2015 by Sarah White Leave a Comment

Did you know you can share what you’ve been blogging about with me and I can share it with readers? Just click on that link at the top that says “suggest a DIY.”

There are several people who regularly share links, and I really appreciate it. One of them is Donna, aka purl3agony, and I have a couple of links from her this week because I’ve been slow getting through them lately so I thought I’d share them together.

The first has to do with ideas for things you can knit that will sell well at craft fairs or shows. There are some great ideas here for what is trending in the craft world (boot toppers, headbands, ruffle scarves) as well as perennial favorites (baby things, washcloths) that you should consider making as well.

A lot of these are great gift ideas, too, if you’re still thinking about such things (I am seriously considering ruffle scarves in school colors for the girl’s teachers).

The second post is another great one leading into the holidays, all about knitting a tree skirt for a tabletop tree. Donna received a ceramic tree from her in-laws, but was worried it might scratch the table. She knit up a circular doily for it to sit on that looks like a tree skirt. And while hers is plain white so she can use it for other things through the year, she offers ideas for giving it more of a holiday look if you want.

Who are some of your favorite knitting bloggers? I’m always looking for more people to keep up with!

[Photo via purl3agony.]

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Bring Some Texture to Your Sweater Knitting

I generally think of adding color as a way to add interest to a sweater. You can easily throw in stripes or a bit of Fair Isle patterning, even on a sweater that’s meant to be plain, to make it a little more fun.

But there’s also something to be said for working a sweater in a solid color and using textured stitch patterns to make a project more interesting.

Tressa Weidenaa’s Bluewater Sweater began as wrap design, and then a cowl she designed for a class. The stitches looked to her like they would also be good on a sweater yoke, so the Bluewater Sweater was born, too.

The textured stitches are meant to look like ripples on water, inspired by a lake her family visited when she was young. It’s all knits and purls and a single color, which would make it a nice first sweater or one when you’re still early in your knitting journey.

The sweater is worked from the top down in DK weight or light worsted yarn and has a circular yoke. The pattern is charted, but just knits and purls worked in the round makes for pretty easy chart reading. There are 11 sizes to chose from, with a finished garment circumference ranging from 40.5 to 65.75 inches, or 103 to 168 cm. You can choose the amount of ease you would like, but it’s meant to have 4 to 6 inches, or 10 to 15 cm of positive ease.

You can buy this pattern on Ravelry, and if you’re interested in how the stitch pattern looks in other designs, also check out the Bluewater Cowl and Shawl. It’s really interesting to see how to same basic knit and purl patterns can be put to such different uses, or even just how they look different when stitched in different colors. Isn’t knitting fun?

[Photo: Tressa Weidenaar]

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