Stitch a Scarf with Dreamy Waves

As I write this, it’s probably time to start thinking about winter knitting if you haven’t already. And it’s definitely time to think about gift knitting if you have any of that you plan to do for the holidays.

The Dreamy Waves Scarf from Knit Picks, designed by Stacey Winklepleck, would be a great project to go in either category.

It uses two different multicolored yarns and a simple repeating wave pattern to make a project that looks a lot more complicated and dramatic than it is. The gradient look happens naturally just by switching which yarn you’re knitting with.

This pattern uses worsted weight yarn so it’s a pretty quick project even though a scarf is large and this one is pretty wide. It measures 8.5 inches (21.5 cm) wide and 63 inches or 120 cm long. Of course you can make it longer or shorter as you like. As written it takes one ball of each color so it’s a pretty economical project, too.

It’s rated for intermediate knitters but if you know how to do various increases and decreases you’ll be all set. The pattern uses knit 2 together, make 1 left and right, centered double decrease and slip slip knit. All of the stitches are explained in a glossary in the pattern so even if you haven’t done all of them it shouldn’t be too hard to figure out.

The pattern also includes tons of options for different colorways in yarn that Knit Picks sells, so you can see how different combinations knit up before you buy the yarn. That’s such a great idea!

Of course if you already have two multicolored yarns with long color runs on hand, you can absolutely use them, too. It might also be fun, but would give you a totally different look, to use a solid color and a bunch of scraps or one multicolored yarn to see how the different colors play together. So many options!

You can grab this free pattern and check out all the color options at Knit Picks.

[Photo: Knit Picks]

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I feel like I haven’t shared many knitting machine patterns lately, probably because I haven’t been using my knitting machines much lately. (I finally made space for them to live on the bookshelf in my office, and now that they have a “place” it’s almost like I forgot they existed for a while.)

But I did recently make a little cat bed, that surely would work for a small dog, too.

This one uses two different sizes of knitting machine: a larger one (it could be any in the 40-48 needle range) and a 22 pin.

The larger machine is used in flat panel mode to make the bottom pillow like part of the bed, while the smaller machine makes a long tube that is used around the edges as the sort of walls of the cat bed.

For stuffing I used a bit of leftover quilt batting for the pillow, and some cut up old T-shirts for the tube.

You can use any worsted weight yarn you like (I used two colors of Big Twist Pound+, which comes in huge skeins that weigh more than a pound). Acrylic or cotton yarn is nice for washablity, but you’ll be cranking for a while so make sure you use a yarn your machine likes so it’s not too much of a struggle.

You can grab the pattern for this cat bed over at Our Daily Craft. I’m sorry to report the pictured is as close as a cat has gotten to it so far, but maybe your cats like to be cozy more than mine do?

If you’re looking for more options for cute handmade places for your cats and little dogs to rest, check out this roundup of knit pet beds. I still want to knit one by hand but the machine version was definitely a faster option (especially good since my cats are ungrateful).

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