Knitting for Dogs, Cats, and Yarnbombing

Jacksonville, Fla., resident Jane Cottrel has been busy knitting scarves for unlikely customers: pugs. She sells wee warmers for pups at $25 a pop and donates the money to pug rescue organizations. She’s made $1,00 so far and has orders that will bring in $1,000 more.

Meanwhile, knitters at a Scottish senior center have been knitting for cats. The home has a weekly knitting class and so far a dozen blankets have been donated to a feline welfare charity.

Knit graffiti has popped up in a local park in Vaudreuil-Dorion (that’s in Quebec). The yarnbombing was developed by members of the local Cercles des fermières, a women’s organization celebrating its 100th year. Members said they are trying to raise awareness of the group among younger women, and they covered about 75 trees in knitting and crochet. About 25 of the Cercles des fermières groups are planning yarnbombing projects this year.

A group of churches in Norfolk, UK, are planning a celebration of knitting to take place this summer, and part of the scene will include a knit wedding, complete with a knit bishop based on the real-life bishop in the area. The fiber Bishop Graham was stitched up in about 50 days using 16 balls of wool. When meeting his knit double the real bishop said perhaps there should be more knitted bishops so that way he could “keep an eye on everyone.” How’s that for a great stash-busting project!

[Photo via Montreal Gazette.]

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.

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