Little Things to Knit to Make Winter Better

I know it hasn’t been actual winter in the Northern Hemisphere for that long, but as soon as we get past the holidays the weight of how much winter we have left to deal with starts to get to me. That means it’s time to knit up a little something that’s useful and pretty, like tissue covers, hot water bottle cozies and tea cozies.

Grab your brightest yarns to add a little cheer to your house for the coldest part of the year!

These little tissue holders are perfect for making it a little easier to find your tissue pack in your bag or on your desk (if your desk is as messy as mine!). The free pattern from kmkat uses sock yarn, so it’s a great way to use those little bits left from other projects.

If you use a hot water bottle to add a little warmth this time of year, why not stitch up a pretty cover for it? This one from Olga Beckmann (find it on Ravelry) uses super bulky yarn so it stitches up in no time, and includes a pretty cable that’s easy enough to do without a cable needle.

You can also knit your bottle a Fair Isle sweater with this design from Laura Penrose (also on Ravelry). It’s worked with two strand of fingering weight held together (or a DK held on its own) and fits a 2 liter bottle.

You can come up with your own embellishments or just knit it plain with this basic hot water bottle cover from Stitches by Artgaze. It calls for three strands of DK weight yarn held together (which comes to a super bulky gauge worked on size 17 US/12mm needles) and is worked in the round.

Now that your water bottle is cozy, how about your teapot? I love this beehive cozy from Knitting Pattern World. It uses chunky yarn and a fun welting pattern that gives it a beehive look. There’s even a little bee to stitch for the top!

The Teapot Turtleneck is a free pattern on Ravelry from Suzanne Resaul that uses worsted weight yarn and an easy ribbing stitch so it can stretch to fit teapots of different shapes.

Another freebie is the Tea Mitten pattern from Elisabeth Kleven on Ravelry, which uses DK weight yarn and is worked from the bottom up in the round in a ribbed pattern with a button flap worked much like a thumb gusset on a mitten.

While we’re keeping tea warm, why not also make your tea bags cozy? This little project from Julie Tarsha (available on Ravelry) is perfect if you carry tea bags in your bag and don’t want them to get squashed or lost. It calls for a tiny bit of worsted weight yarn and a little button to close it.

There are two schools of thought when it comes to instructional books about knitting. Either focus in one particular technique or kind of knitting (stranded knitting, say, or brioche) or try to cover a little bit of everything in a reference book that knitters will use throughout their careers.

The Knitting Book by Frederica Patmore and Dr. Vikki Haffenden aims to be the second kind. The subtitle is: a step-by-step guide to creating imaginative projects for the home and to wear. I’m not sure it does that, exactly, but it does include a quick look at a lot of different techniques and stitch patterns you might use in your projects.

A “guide to creating imaginative projects” sounds to me like it’s about design, but this book is not. There’s 1/3 of a page about altering patterns that only talks about how to add length to a sleeve and adjust where the increases go.

There’s nothing about measuring your body (the section on choosing a size in a pattern only suggests measuring a garment you already own), general garment construction, ease or stitch pattern multiples. The section on gauge (which is the last third of the page with choosing a garment size and altering patterns, discussed above) just says to knit a swatch, block and measure it to compare to a pattern, with no discussion on how you might use your swatch to design your own project or alter a pattern to meet your gauge.

If you ignore the subtitle, what you will find is a lot of information about different kinds of knitting and various techniques you might want to try on your projects. There are 20 cast ons and 15 bind off options, for instance, all discussed before you learn how to knit or purl. (Another quibble I have with this book is the order in which things are presented, but that’s relatively minor.)

You’ll find quick hits on increases and decreases, twists and cables, lace, colorwork, textured effects like fisherman’s rib and brioche, loops, mosaic knitting, double knitting, decorative stitches, shadow knitting, bias knitting, mitered squares, entrelac and more. There are tips for selvedge stitches, knitting with beads, adding buttonholes, picking up stitches and more.

A few patterns at the back give knitters a taste of some of the techniques included, but they’re not rated by skill level and the first one is a bias knit gradient scarf worked in six different colors of mohair, which isn’t a thing I’d wish on any beginner.

And I guess that’s maybe what my issue with the book is. I don’t know if it’s meant for beginners and it doesn’t seem to, either. I feel like this book would be overwhelming to new knitters and doesn’t really give you a place to start or all the information you might need to do projects well.

The variety of techniques included is fun, and there are also stitch patterns in the back you can use on your own projects, but again it doesn’t really provide any guidance for how to design your own projects so I don’t know how helpful all of that is.

I want to like books like this because having one reference that helps you with a lot of different things is great, I’m just not sure this is the one. If you can find it at your library or local book store and flip through it before buying, I think that would be a great idea to see if it’s a book that would be helpful for you.

And if you have this book and love it please let me know! I’m sure it’s good for someone I’m just not sure who.

About the book: 336 pages, hardcover. Published 2026 by DK. Suggested retail price $40.

Have you read?