Knitting in the News, Looking Back and Ahead

A couple of strange knitting-related news items have hit my Facebook feed in the past couple of days that I thought you might be interested in. First off, of course Google releases a list of the most-searched terms each year, and one of the lists it compiled had to do with the most-searched how-to queries. “How to knit” came in at number five, just after how to blog and before how to kiss. Which may not be quite my order of priority, but still.

Humorist Bill Mann wrote a rather tongue-in-cheek list of strange resolutions he wants to keep for 2104, which included yarnbombing trees (along with “extreme ironing” and collecting air sick bags from different airlines). While knitting a jumper for a tree isn’t actually a good practice (long term it can hurt the tree), I’m all for decorating more of the world in colorful knits, completely randomly.

I hope your new year’s resolutions include knitting and that you’ll share them with me. If there’s any way I can help I’ll add it to a post here!

Fall will be here before we know it, and that means there are holidays coming right behind where we might be entertaining at home. It’s always fun to have a hand knit touch in your home for other people to see, and if you’re going to be in the kitchen all day you might as well have some nice knit dish cloths to use.

I love this little plaid hand towel from Darling Jadore. Use a little bit of leftover cotton yarn from another project for the plaid portion. It looks like the horizontal stripes are worked as you knit and the vertical stripes are done with duplicate stitch, making this a quick and easy project even newer knitters can make.

Combine garter stitch and an easy eyelet pattern worked sideways to make the Annette Dish Towel from Cluck Cluck Boots, which is meant to be reminiscent of flour sack towels. It calls for DK weight yarn and you can work it in one color or two (or even three!).

Add a little more texture with this set of kitchen towels from Whileberry Creative. They’re mostly worked in garter stitch with borders in easy knit/purl patterns, and you can work them in sport or worsted weight yarn.

Two of Wands Shop has another cute allover knit and purl pattern they call the Seersucker Textured Tea Towel. It’s an easy repeating pattern worked in worsted weight yarn, and there’s a chart in the pattern you can use, but don’t have to, if you want to practice knitting from a chart.

The Classic Cloth dish towel from Handmade Home by Connie is another one that can use a little leftover yarn in a contrasting color, or you could color block it our use stripes throughout the pattern. This one uses worsted weight yarn and another easy repeating knit purl stitch pattern.

If you like to hang your towel on the oven handle or elsewhere but it’s always falling off, try the Stay Put kitchen towel from Fancy Step Knits. This project is worked in garter stitch and includes a hole partway through so you can pull the towel through itself over a rod or handle. Stripes are optional but a nice addition.

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