Knit a Cowl to Show Your Love of Potatoes

This was meant to be an April Fool’s Day joke, but it’s just like knitters to take something funny and make it into a reality.

I’ve told you before about Jamie Lomax’s doodle cowls and other projects (see also: arctic cowl, holiday doodle hat in this roundup of Christmas knitting patterns), and she, along with the designers behind Fangirl Fibers and Yarnaceous Fibers, decided it would be funny to do an April Fool’s Day set of doodles that can be used on one of her projects.

And what better symbol of pranks and follies than potatoes?

(Actually, I have no idea why potatoes, but I’m going with it. Potatoes are delicious.)

So while the idea was a bit of a prank, the potato doodle charts are very much real, and you can grab the charts to make your own cowl decked out in spuds.

Lest you think there’s just a chart of potatoes here, let me tell you, there are 10 different potato motifs for stitching up russet potatoes, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, baked potatoes, French fries, crinkle fries, waffle fries, potato chips, hashbrowns and tater tots. It’s truly a design to make Sam Gamgee proud.

The cowl itself comes in three sizes and you can knit it using sport, DK or light worsted yarn. The charts are mix and match, so you can use all of them in your project or pick your favorites. Make an ode to fries in knit form, or pick the potatoes that best go with your yarn stash.

You can even get a kit from Fangirl Fibers and Yarnaceous Fibers to make your very own potato cowl if you don’t have the yarn on hand.

You can get the free pattern on Ravelry. And don’t miss the great guide to doodle patterns over at the Pacific Knit Co. website, which is a great place to start if you haven’t worked with patterns like this before.

[Photo: Jamie Lomax]

Getting ready for back to school makes me think about pencil crafts, so let’s take a look at some pencil themed knitting patterns!

I recently made a pencil on a circular knitting machine, and it was a fun, quick, easy project that uses little bits of leftover yarn (and if you don’t have yellow you can make it a colored pencil using whatever color’s your favorite). And if you want to make a bigger version check out this pattern from Orange Olive Road on Etsy.

If you want to knit a pencil pillow by hand, check out Sketchy, available on Ravelry from Shana S. Cohen. This one uses worsted weight yarn and has two size options and the choice to make a pencil with an eraser or a colored pencil.

Pencil scarves seem to be the most popular kind of pencil knitting pattern, and there are lot of cute ones. This one from Cosy Craft UK mostly uses garter stitch, with some welts to add texture and what looks like an I-cord edging. It calls for DK weight yarn.

If you want to go all garter stitch try this version from Emsley Co Creations, which uses five colors of DK weight yarn and just a little shaping to make the point of the pencil.

There’s also this fun, mostly stockinette so it looks like it curls a bit, pencil pattern that looks like it’s worked in chunky yarn from Little Knits Studio. This one uses just a little garter stitch and easy shaping for the point.

If you don’t want a pencil scarf, how about some pencil socks? The No. 2 Pencil Socks from The Yarn Enabler are available from Ravelry and use five colors of sock yarn. They feature wide ribs to mimic the texture of a pencil and have options to be worked from the top down or the toe up.

Needs Sharpening by Alexander Walker is a free pattern on Ravelry that uses five colors of sock yarn to make a sort of shortie sock. The little bit of black at the tips of the toes inspired the name. These, too, can be worked in either direction and are available in three sizes.

Have you read?