More Fun Christmas Crafting from Red Heart

Red Heart has a 12 weeks of Christmas e-mail series that’s full of ideas for knitters and crocheters looking to make their homes a little more festive this holiday season, but they also recently released the Make it Merry ebook, which includes all those patterns — 34 projects in all for knitting and crochet.

The ebook has the patterns arranged by theme:

Red and White Christmas
Heart-Warming Decor
Cozy Holiday Home
Snowflake Wonders
For Babies and Kids
To Wear and Give

Some of my favorites include the Cheerful Holiday Penguin, which is super cute with its striped belly and little red scarf; the Santa Baby Sweater, a little red hooded sweater with white trim, of course (they also have a full Santa Baby Suit, though I didn’t see it in the ebook); and the lovely, warm Cozy Shrug, worked in super bulky yarn, making it a quick gift to knit or a wonderful warmer for yourself.

(By the way, another cute one from the 12 Weeks of Christmas e-mails that I didn’t see in the book is the Holiday Pillow with Stockings. If it were me I would absolutely find a tiny gift to stick in those little socks!)

This guide is sure to get you inspired and excited about the holiday knitting season if you aren’t already.

See anything that catches your eye? I’d love to hear about it!

[Photo via Red Heart.]

Next Pattern:

It’s well known (among knitters, anyway) that knitters seem to love chickens as a motif and a subject of our knitting projects. The Emotional Support Chicken and all the other chicken knitting patterns are just the beginning of our devotion to farmyard friends.

For example, there’s Farmer Dennis’ Chicken Hat. This free pattern from Stacy Black is a simple worsted weight beanie sized for adults and decorate with a couple of little rounds of colorwork fences and a flock of chickens strutting around the body of the hat.

You don’t need a lot of any of the colors for the chickens, their facial features or the fences, so this is a great project for using little leftover bits from other projects. The main color for the body of the hat is less than a skein using the yarn suggested, so you might just have everything you need in your house to start stitching up this hat right away.

The colorwork is presented as a chart, with a 16 stitch section that repeats around the body of the hat. All the color changes are shown on the chart but I think it would be easier to knit the whole chicken in the chicken color and add the eye, beak and other features using duplicate stitch when the knitting is done. That way you don’t have to carry those yarns around the whole hat for just a few stitches.

As the name suggests, the original hat was given to a farmer who shared their eggs, but anyone who raises chickens or just has a thing for the fowl is sure to love this cute hat. It wouldn’t be too difficult for someone new to stranded knitting or reading charts to make, either, so if that’s you, give it a try.

The pattern is available for free on Ravelry.

[Photo: Stacy Black]

Knitting Patterns for Little Chicks

Tiny Hens to Knit

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