Stitch with Sweets to Support Warm Up America

The Hallmark Channel and Warm Up America have teamed up with Stitched with Sweets to provide fun and warm Christmas scarves to women’s shelters.

As part of their Countdown to Christmas, The Hallmark Channel has donate $10,000 to the initiative and is encouraging knitters and crocheters to stitch festive scarves in their holiday color palette to donate to Warm Up America, which will distribute them to shelters.

Cozy up with your favorite story about a woman who decides to leave her life in the big city behind to marry the owner of the Christmas tree farm (isn’t that what they’re all about?) and stitch up some fun hot chocolate mugs and holiday sweets to make into scarves to donate.

The original pattern was designed for crochet by Twinkie Chan, master of food-related crochet. (I’ve made her crochet doughnut rattle a couple of times.) Candace O. adapted the pattern for knitters.

It’s patchwork based so you can make a bunch of pieces and sew them together, or you could alternate different designs in one long piece and add appliques when the the knitting is done. There are options for hot chocolate mugs worked in garter stitch or ribbing, with hears and candy canes you can applique to the mugs. There’s are also rectangular panels with designs inspired by candy canes, ribbon candy and peppermint bark, as well as a bobble-covered piece meant to evoke marshmallows.

The image above shows the crocheted version because there’s not a full knit scarf on their website. But if you want to crochet it, there’s also a video tutorial on the website showing how to work the pieces.

Both the knit and crochet patterns are available from Warm Up America. There you will also find the address to send completed scarves or patches that they can sew up on their end. There’s no deadline mentioned, but check that page for more details before you donate.

Also check out their current needs page on their website to learn about other things you can make to donate.

[Photo via Warm Up America]

Next Pattern:

Many times when I write these posts I will say something like “you can use any yarn you want” or “this would be a great stash-busting project.” That’s just how my mind works. And my stash, too, since I probably have sweater quantity of two or three yarns at most, but tons of singles and odd balls and leftovers.

Blankets are generally a really good way to use up those bits, but in this case, I think you’re going to want to plan it out a bit better.

Looking at photos of the Color Study Blanket from Purl Soho, it looks like it’s made with two yarns held together, and that block in the center is worked with one of each color from the adjoining sides to make a mixed up color.

But that’s not actually how it’s done. This is three separate colors (four, really, with the neutrals in the corners) chosen form a yarn with an expansive palette so they play off each other. The project calls for a worsted weight superwash wool, which is a great choice for a blanket that’s both warm and washable.

This pattern was originally designed by Laura Ferguson and was updated by Hiromi Glover. It is worked in one piece in garter stitch intarsia, which is a great way to learn the intarsia technique if you don’t already know it. It comes in crib or throw sizes.

Despite the introduction to this post, I am going to go ahead and say that, yes, of course you could do this blanket with scraps or odd balls or even just choose five colors that don’t blend together so easily. But I really do love the look of the color play, and I think it would be worth your time to find colors that play well together to get a similar effect.

This pattern is available for free from Purl Soho.

[Photo: Purl Soho]

Next Pattern:

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