Quilt Inspired Knitting Patterns

I’ve written before about how much I love it when different crafts come together, and I particular enjoy when motifs from one craft show up in another, like the trend toward knitting patterns inspired by quilts. It’s just an extra layer of sweetness and crafty history all in one.

The project that got me thinking about quilt inspired knitting this time around was the Blouse 3 pattern from Tine Rousing. Of course stars are a common motif in knitting already, but the patchwork nature of this top, worked with two strands of lace weight yarn held together, really reminds me of quilts. It’s worked in garter stitch flat from the bottom up in pieces using lots of intarsia (and charts). It’s finished with a split hem and a button placket and rounded neckline, and it comes in three sizes. You can find it on Ravelry in English and Danish.

Sally Melville’s Poppy’s Garden had to get a spot in this roundup because it reminds me of the grandmother’s flower garden quilts in my family. This one is heavy on crochet because the hexagon motifs are crocheted, but they are joined with knitting and back is knit in a knit-purl diamond pattern. The pattern is available in five sizes and uses DK weight yarn. The pattern includes lots of tips and extra help to get you through any tricky bits. It’s also available on Ravelry.

The Quilt Block Scarf from Star Crossed Knits is even more straightforward about its inspiration. Here are those classic stars again, this time worked as an allover colorwork pattern worked in the round to make a tube. It calls for worsted weight yarn and you can work the stars in a single color, stripes as shown or just use up stash to make a super colorful project.

The Once Upon a Quilt socks from Renardeendormie use a patchwork style for the stars on the legs. They’re worked from the top down and call for three colors, but you can use more if you want. There are three sizes and you can adjust to your desired fit.

Or how about a hat on the same motif? The Ambler Quilt Hat from Katryn Seeburger is a fingering weight hat worked with two colors all around and has a folded over cuff that’s sewed to the body of the hat. The pattern includes six sizes to fit a newborn through adult large.

I guess I must have had this pattern on my mind, because I had chosen this log cabin blanket recipe to write about, promptly forgot about it and a couple of weeks later started knitting a log cabin blanket using all my pink yarn.

It might stay pink if it makes it to baby blanket sized, or I might add in some pastel green and blue, too, to make a bigger blanket. We’ll see. I’m also holding several strands of yarn together to make a kind of bulky yarn, which means it’s deeply satisfying how much yarn is used even as the project is still relatively small.

In Kristen Finlay’s version, DK weight yarn scraps (or fingering/sock yarn held double) are used to make a simple scrappy log cabin blanket that’s lighter weight than my version. Log cabin is a great technique for knitters of any skill level because it’s worked in garter stitch. The only not completely basic technique you need for log cabin knitting is picking up stitches.

If you’ve never worked a log cabin knitting project before, this is a good introduction, and it is really nice to use all your yarn scraps in one big project you’ll use for years to come.

If you use a lot of DK weight yarn you can keep building on it whenever you finish a project, or if you use more worsted weight you can do the same thing with it, it will just be a little bigger starting out than the pattern calls for. How big it gets is totally up to you.

I have really been enjoying working on my log cabin project, and it’s my current sitting at my desk and need a break knit (do you have one of those or is it just me?).

Ready to start your own log cabin blanket knitting project? You can grab the free pattern from Kristen Finlay on Ravelry.

Need more log cabin inspiration? Check out more log cabin knitting patterns.

[Photo: Kristen Finlay]

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