Projects to Knit for Mother’s Day

In America Mother’s Day is right around the corner, so if you’re planning to knit something for a special mom in your life, you probably should get cracking!

In years past I’ve shared ideas for knitting fingerless gloves (plus my own lacy mitts pattern at CraftBits), shrugs and other quick knit projects for mom, and those posts are a great place to look for ideas.

I thought this year I would share some easy to knit shawls, because if your mom is anything like this mom, she could use a shawl pretty much year round.

I search on Ravelry for free shawl knitting patterns that have high user ratings (4.5 and up on a scale of 5) and low difficulty (0 to 4 on a scale of 10). Not that complex stuff isn’t great, but we have a deadline here, right?

Here are a dozen great shawl knitting patterns that meet those requirements that I’m sure your favorite mom, grandma, aunt or other awesome lady in your life will love.

Age of Brass and Steam by Orange Flower Yarn has been on my knit list for a long time. It’s a simple triangular kerchief worked mostly in Stockinette with a few eyelet ridges.

The Boneyard Shawl by Stephen West is another classic, mostly Stockinette triangle. I actually have knit one of these, and it’s super simple but it’s a big project so it still takes a while to knit. I love it and use it all the time. Another Stephen West shawl that showed up in my survey is Metalouse, originally published in Knitty in 2012. It’s a gorgeous, multicolored, top-down triangle that uses slipped stitches to make a bold statement without a lot of work on your part.

The Gallatin Scarf from Kriskrafter is more like a tiny shawl in its construction, and it’s a much faster project than a Boneyard or Age of Brass and Steam because it’s so much smaller, and mostly a mesh pattern, which works up super fast.

Another teensy project is 22 Little Clouds by Martina Behm. It uses a little more than 300 yards of yarn, the ruffled edge looks like a cloud, and the skinny shape makes it possible to wrap and tuck in the ends.

When I think I fast knitting, I think of openwork, which is just what you get with the Fringe Shawl from Julie’s Creative World (this one is free, but you have to do a checkout on her website, which requires filling out all the information as if you were actually buying something). It’s worked on size 10 needles, too, which will help it go faster.

Annett Cordes has a super fun-looking shawl on her blog called Linus (the blog is not in English but there are English instructions). It looks spectacular in self-striping yarn; it could even be a stash-busting project.

And speaking of fun, the Playground Shawl by Lete’s Knits is almost literally a walk in the park. Great playground knitting and an awesome way to use a ball of yarn with super-long color runs (or, again, use odd balls for each of the openwork sections). Or use a solid color and it would still be a beauty.

Do you collect awesome hanks of sock yarn? Use a bunch in one project by stitching up Outline from Beata Jezek. It’s a big project on small yarn but the chevron pattern is easy and a great way to show off an array of amazing yarn.

I admit to having a bias toward triangles and similar shapes when I knit (and design) shawls, but there’s something to be said for a great circular shawl pattern, too. Vortex by Kristina McCurley features a swirly eyelet design that looks like a hurricane made out of yarn.

The Seashell shawl by Nicola Susen is a good-sized shawl with a shape and a stitch pattern that will remind you of seashells and the sea. This one isn’t a quick project, either, but it’s well worth it (and the yarn it’s worked in is luscious).

The title of the Sommernachtstraum shawl helpfully translates the term as Sundowner, but even if I didn’t know what it meant (I still don’t know how to pronounce it) I would like this shawl. It has a lot of Garter Stitch and some fun curving eyelets, and it comes in two sizes, one of which is downright huge.

Do you have something on the needles for Mother’s Day? I’d love to hear what you’re working on.