Knitting

Free Patterns, Tutorials and Project Ideas

Knit a Snake for the Year of the Snake

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Lunar new year is here and it’s the year of the wood snake. If you want to celebrate with knitting, here are some fun snake knitting patterns for you to try.

Stitch up a snake dishcloth or add it as an afghan square to a blanket you knit up this year. This free pattern from Daisy and Storm uses a single color and purl stitches to make the snake design. The pattern is charted but there are also line by line instructions if you need them. It calls for DK or light worsted yarn but you can make it with regular kitchen cotton and you’ll get a slightly bigger cloth. 

Make a snake with stripes to bust your stash or make a single colored snake if you’d rather with this pattern from Sarah Ann Thompson. It calls for worsted weight yarn and you can make it as long as you like, or go until you run out of oddballs. Does that ever happen? You can grab this pattern for free on Ravelry.

Or try the snake knitting pattern from Natty Knits on Etsy, which uses bulky yarn and it made to coil, so you work it in different sections to make it stack up on itself. So cute!

There’s also Stanley Snake from Fluff and Fuzz, which is made to be striped with all your DK weight odd balls, but you could make it a solid color if you’d rather. It’s a pretty simple knit that’s worked flat with a little shaping for the head.

Louise Walker’s snake scarf (on Ravelry) would be another fun one to do in lots of colors to use up your stash of bulky odd balls, or work in two colors as shown. It’s worked in two pieces that are seamed together for extra coziness, which also means you could lightly stuff it or add a layer of fleece for even more warmth if you want.

The adorable snake charmer sweater from Marit Krogstad (buy it on Ravelry) has a sweet spotted snake running across the body and down one sleeve. It’s sized for kids (ages 3/4 to 9/10) and calls for DK weight yarn. The pattern is available in English and Norwegian.

Stash Busting with Knitted Toys

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Patchwork Blanket Knitting Patterns

Any time of year is a good time for stash busting, but if you can combine it with knitting a blanket that will keep you warm when it (finally!) gets cooler that’s even better. Let’s take a look at some fun patchwork blanket knitting patterns. 

If you want to keep it super simple, you can just make blocks of garter stitch and sew them together, like the beginner’s patchwork baby blanket from Mini Baa Baa or the color block blanket from Make and Do Crew. Both projects are worked in strips and sew together, with the baby version calling for two strands of DK or light worsted weight yarn held together and the larger one using bulky yarn. 

Add a little more texture with the mixed blocks of the cottage quilt throw from Mama in a Stitch. This one combines garter stitch and seed stitch and uses worsted weight yarn. She used a crochet join to make the chains on top of the blocks, but you can join them however you like. It calls for eight colors but you can use what you have, and there are three size options. 

Get a real sampler style patchwork blanket with this design from Knit Sew Make. It calls for worsted weight yarn and has four size options. All of the patterns just use knit and purl stitches so this one is still pretty easy for beginners. 

If you want a more complex colorwork project that will keep you entertained all season, try the Peace by Piece blanket pattern from Needle and Feather. This one is made up of two color colorwork blocks and calls for worsted weight yarn. You can choose to use just a few of the blocks and repeat them more often, or make multiples of the whole set. 

The knitted patchwork recipe from Martine Ellis (free on Ravelry) uses mitered squares in fingering weight yarn, so it’s perfect for using up all your leftover sock yarn and mini skeins. This one is a tutorial more than a pattern so you can make your blanket as big as you like or keep going until you run out of yarn. 

Susan B. Anderson’s 100 Squares blanket (find it on Ravelry) has a lot of mitered squares, too, but they’re arranged in fun ways and includes some quilt inspired designs as well. This one also is a bit of method more than pattern but it sure looks like a lot of fun for using all the leftovers. 

Of course you can totally improvise a patchwork blanket using the yarn and stitches you like, but I hope these patterns inspire you to look at your leftover yarn in a new way.