Stitch Flowers on Your Sweater Sleeves

I am normally a fan of pretty basic sweaters for myself. It’s fun to have a little detail that makes it interesting, but as much as I have a ton of colorful sweater patterns in my Ravelry library, the vast majority of the time I go for plain stockinette stitch, maybe with stripes or color changes brought about by trying to bust my stash.

But adding a little bit of something special to a project makes it that much more interesting to knit and to wear, and it doesn’t have to be an allover pattern to increase the wow factor.

Take the Nola pattern by yamagara for example. This simple bulky cardigan would be a great piece just worked in a single color of stockinette stitch. But those bold flowers on the sleeves elevate it into something you’ll reach for all winter long when you need a pick me up and a reminder that flowers will be back again.

I love the neutral colors shown in the model but it would be amazing with bright pink or yellow flowers, too. Or whatever color you like!

The pattern uses intarsia on those oversized sleeves to make the flower pattern, but there’s also an option in the pattern to do it completely in duplicate stitch if you’d rather (though this would be a great learning pattern if you’ve never done intarsia before). The body is worked from the top down with raglan shaping and the button bands are worked as you knit the body for minimal finishing.

The sweater comes in nine sizes, with a finished bust measurement ranging from 39 to 69 inches, or 99 to 175.5 cm. It’s meant to be worn with 6 to 10 inches/15 to 25 cm of positive ease. The pattern shows the sweater cropped but you can also make it longer if you like.

This would be a great garment to allow you to get a little more wear out of your summer dresses; just throw leggings on underneath and the sweater on top for a day full of cozy comfort.

You can find this pattern on Ravelry. It is available in English and Spanish.

[Photo: yamagara]

Fall will be here before we know it, and that means there are holidays coming right behind where we might be entertaining at home. It’s always fun to have a hand knit touch in your home for other people to see, and if you’re going to be in the kitchen all day you might as well have some nice knit dish cloths to use.

I love this little plaid hand towel from Darling Jadore. Use a little bit of leftover cotton yarn from another project for the plaid portion. It looks like the horizontal stripes are worked as you knit and the vertical stripes are done with duplicate stitch, making this a quick and easy project even newer knitters can make.

Combine garter stitch and an easy eyelet pattern worked sideways to make the Annette Dish Towel from Cluck Cluck Boots, which is meant to be reminiscent of flour sack towels. It calls for DK weight yarn and you can work it in one color or two (or even three!).

Add a little more texture with this set of kitchen towels from Whileberry Creative. They’re mostly worked in garter stitch with borders in easy knit/purl patterns, and you can work them in sport or worsted weight yarn.

Two of Wands Shop has another cute allover knit and purl pattern they call the Seersucker Textured Tea Towel. It’s an easy repeating pattern worked in worsted weight yarn, and there’s a chart in the pattern you can use, but don’t have to, if you want to practice knitting from a chart.

The Classic Cloth dish towel from Handmade Home by Connie is another one that can use a little leftover yarn in a contrasting color, or you could color block it our use stripes throughout the pattern. This one uses worsted weight yarn and another easy repeating knit purl stitch pattern.

If you like to hang your towel on the oven handle or elsewhere but it’s always falling off, try the Stay Put kitchen towel from Fancy Step Knits. This project is worked in garter stitch and includes a hole partway through so you can pull the towel through itself over a rod or handle. Stripes are optional but a nice addition.

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