Knitting

Free Patterns, Tutorials and Project Ideas

Mix Your Colors for a Fun Cardigan

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I’m not saying you have six different colors of super bulky yarn in your stash, but if you did, this would be a great use for it.

Anastasia’s Cardigan from Anastasia Pargett and Andi Satterlund is a cute, boxy, colorblocked cardigan with an open front that would be a fun first sweater pattern or first playing with color sweater.

It comes in 10 sizes, ranging from a chest measurement of 34 to 70 inches (that’s 86.4 to 177.8 cm for our metric friends). There’s no shaping at all except a little bit on the sleeves, so its a great choice for knitters of any skill level. The color changes are easy to do because all the pieces are worked separately and seamed together. And because there are different colors everywhere your seams don’t even have to be perfect to line up different blocks of color.

In addition to the color blocking options (which of course you could tone down if you don’t want as many color changes or don’t have that many colors) there are other ideas for customization through surface stitching. One of the versions shown here, for example, only uses five colors, while one uses contrasting yarn for the bands and more stitching to highlight the color changes on the sleeves.

If you don’t happen to have a ton of super bulky yarn on hand, you could make this an odd ball project by working multiple strands of worsted or other weights of yarn held together. Change colors when the pattern suggests or just whenever you run out of yarn to make it colorful and fun to knit and wear.

The pattern is available for free from Knit Picks, where you can also make yourself a kit using the suggested Fluff of the Andes yarn, a singles yarn made of Peruvian Highland wool that’s available in 26 colors.

[Photo via Knit Picks]

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Classic Dishcloth Knitting Patterns

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.