Knitting

Free Patterns, Tutorials and Project Ideas

Review: Kids’ Ultimate Craft Book

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If you’ve got kids home for the summer or are just interested in indoctrinating them into the world of crafts at any time of year, Kids’ Ultimate Craft Book is a fun place to start.

This compilation craft book from the editors at Quarry Books covers knitting as well as beading, crochet, knotting, braiding and sewing. Each of the five chapters includes an overview of materials, tools and techniques needed to get started, and then there are a few patterns the kiddo can use to practice that craft.

The knitting chapter begins with an introduction from Mary Scott Huff and includes tips on yarn weight, gauge and fiber, essential tools, how to measure and count stitches and rows, working a cable cast on, the knit stitch, purling, working in the round and binding off.

It also includes some tips for fixing mistakes including how to tink and frog. There are also photo tutorials on basic increases and decreases, how to weave in ends nad blocking. It’s a pretty solid education in the basics that will help a new knitter learn on their own or refresh your memory on how to talk through the basic steps to make teaching someone else easier.

The knitting patterns included are a bias knit garter stitch washcloth, a cowl worked in the round with ribbed edges and a stockinette stitch body (shown in two colors, which adds another skill) and a pencil roll worked in two colors. They’re cute projects but I don’t know if a new knitter would stick with the cowl or the pencil roll long enough to finish them. (That said we do usually start knitters on scarves, which isn’t exactly a fast project, so these could be fine, too!)

Since a lot of us like both knitting and crochet (and it’s great to try to teach kids both in case they take to one more easily), I’ll mention the crochet section covers the parts of a hook, abbreviations and reading charts (though charts are not used in the book), how to hold the hook and yarn, making a slip knot, chain, slip stitch, single crochet, double crochet, and tips for working in rows and rounds. The patterns include a braided friendship bracelet made out of chains, a monster with a rectangular single crochet body and twisty arms and legs, and a granny square scarf.

This book provides a quick overview of a bunch of different crafts your teen or tween might be interested in and tells you the basics you need to know to make some fun and relatively easy projects. I think this would be a great book to have on hand for summer, or rainy days, or winter, when those I’m bored feelings creep up (especially if you have a well-stocked craft room so these projects can be started without a trip to the craft store).

About the book: 192 pages, paperback (ebook edition also available), 16 projects (3 knitting patterns). Published 2021 by Quarry Books, suggested retail price $24.99.

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.