Knit Cuties for the Little Ones on Your List

I’ve been knitting a lot for my daughter lately. I think it’s to make up for the year I was working on a book full of adult garments and not knitting anything at all her size. But now I’ve got my eye on knits for smaller humans, and there’s always a lot of cute stuff to stitch.

Here are a few things that have crossed my radar lately.

Love Knitting has the cutest free patterns, and they’re all about dapper cardigans for little ones recently. The striped cardigan from Style Craft and the Christmas-colored Debbie Bliss cardigan are both shown on boys but would be adorable on any baby. (Both are free but require a free subscription signup.)

The summery I’ll Knit You Up I Love You Sew form Jordana Paige is super cute to make any time of year, and doesn’t require a lot of knitting because the bodice of the dress is knit while the skirt is fabric. You could make it a more winter-friendly dress by stitching longer sleeves.

And Classic Elite’s Center Out Baby Blanket is a lovely, colorful pattern worked in a self-striping yarn, great for any little one (or little one to be) on your list.

Looking for more Christmas themed Knitting patterns? Check out some of our favorite Knitting patterns on Etsy and

These Christmas Knitting Pattern Books on Amazon

Generally I like knitting patterns where I feel like you can use whatever yarn you have (because my stash is big enough and I want to use it, thanks) and make a successful project. This is one of those times when a special yarn makes the process that much easier.

The Floral Bouquet Shawl from Xandy Peters uses a specific extended color pooling yarn from Feisty Fibers, which allows you to place the bobble flowers with increasing frequency as you knit the project.

It starts with a solid color yarn, then the two color yarn is added in, and you make a bobble whenever you encounter the color pops. This would be hard to replicate with other yarn that doesn’t have the extended color pooling built in.

The background of the shawl is ribbed, making the project reversible.

The shawl uses fingering/sock yarn and comes out to be an asymmetrical triangle that’s 54 inches/137 cm long and 36 inches/ 90 cm deep and 60 inches/150 cm across the top edge.

Xandy says the pattern is for intermediate to advanced knitters. Knowing how to work traditional bobbles would probably help, but there’s a great video tutorial for how to work the floral bobbles so you can practice on other yarn or even incorporate the bobbles into other projects.

The bobbles are five-petaled flowers but they also kind of look like starfish to me, which could be fun on a child’s cardigan or other pattern. They’d also be fun on the leg of a sock or around the brim of a hat for extra whimsy.

The pattern includes photo and video tutorials, and written and charted instructions. It also includes tips on what to look for if you choose to use different yarn for the project, and instructions on how to dye your own yarn to use in the project.

If you want to give it a try, you can find the pattern on Ravelry.

[Photo: Xandy Peters]

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