Review: Knitting Pleats

There are all sorts of fun ways to add texture to your knitting, and one really cool way to do it that a lot of knitters don’t play with much is knitting pleats.

Pleats are usually worked by knitting some length of knitting, picking up stitches somewhere down from the knitting needle and working the picked up stitches along with the live stitches to make a permanent fold in the knitting.

It’s a fun technique to play with, and Olga Pobedinskaya shares a lot of different ways to use it in her book Knitting Pleats: Stunning Garments and Accessories.

The book begins with general instructions on how to knit pleats and the different kinds of pleats that are possible. It covers some other special techniques before delving into the 17 projects (4 rated easy, 11 intermediate and 2 advanced).

There’s some really interesting stuff in here. Some of the projects that caught my eye include the Puffy Pleats Scarf, which uses mohair yarn and extra large pleats for fluffy texture; the fun shaped Concertina Bag, which folds like an accordion and offers lots of room for all your necessities; the Sectional Pleats T-Shirt, which actually comes off looking pretty simple with its pleats that work almost like darts; the Pleated-Trim Jacket, which uses pleats at the edges and down the center back for an architectural statement; and the Elongated-Back Pullover, a bulky high-low project that’s great for layering.

If you like knitting projects that are just a little different and that make a big fashion statement without too much work, this is a book well worth checking out.

Have you knit from it? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

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.

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