Knitting

Free Patterns, Tutorials and Project Ideas

Nautical Anchor Hat Knitting Pattern

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I don’t really feel like I should need to write any words on this post for you to want to make this adorable hat for a baby in your life.

Or maybe not even a baby. A toddler or a little kid? It’s even sized for teens and adults so you can make them for everyone at the clam bake or on the whale watching expedition.

And even if your lifestyle doesn’t include weekends at the cape or on the shore, you can still stitch up this sweet hat for any beach loving person you know. This would be so cute for a newborn photo shoot with a nautical theme or for a little one with an ocean-themed nursery.

The hat is super easy to work, too, because it’s knit just with the nautical stripes and the anchor is added afterward with duplicate stitch. This is an easy way to add a little graphic element to a pattern without having to deal with doing stranded colorwork or intarsia when you have just a little bit of color to a project.

You could, of course, make it even easier by knitting the hat in a solid color, or just doing the stripes and not adding the anchor. But it’s so darn cute (and this is really an easy technique).

If you’ve never done duplicate stitch before, check out my tutorial all about how to do it. Once you get the mechanics of how it works it’s actually pretty quick to do. For the anchor you do have to read a chart, but it’s such a simple design that shouldn’t be a problem (and of course you can kind of freehand a design based on this anchor pattern if you’d rather).

You can grab the free pattern from Fox & Pine Stitches.

[Photo: Fox & Pine Stitches]

Booklets Full of Knits to Keep You Warm

Basic Beginner Knit Hat for Kids and Adults

Have you read?

Patchwork Blanket Knitting Patterns

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.