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:

Blankets are a great blank slate project that you can change up in a million different ways. From color to stitch pattern to size, the possibilities are almost endless.

Jared Flood, the designer behind Brooklyn Tweed, was inspired by a log cabin quilt his mother made in 1995 to re-create that design in knitting, which led to more blankets and ultimate Brooklyn Tweed’s Knit and Crochet Blankets, which includes 25 patterns from an array of designers using different skills and techniques to make cozy, pretty blankets.

The patterns are divided into three aesthetic themes: traditions, minimalism and colorplay. The patterns are rated on a scale of one to five, with one being the easiest, and there aren’t any pieces rated five. Two blankets are rated one, 14 are two, eight are three and one is four.

In addition, three of the 25 patterns are crocheted, but they either use single crochet or granny stitch, so they are pretty easy even if you don’t do a lot of crochet. You can see all the patterns on Ravelry.

Some of my favorites include Rattan by Rastus Hsu, a chunky blanket worked in knits and purls with simple crossing stitches to make a raised woven look; Homewood by Seth Richardson, covers in dramatic, loopy cables; Ainur Berkimbayeva’s Tessellate, one of the beginner projects that doesn’t really look beginner but is totally worked in knit and purl stitches; Warp + Weft by Aist? Butkevi?ien?, which is mostly knits and purls but makes a fun woven look fabric that blew my mind a little bit; and the same designer’s Canyonland, a multicolored blanket with wavy stripes.

The patterns tell you how to resize them for different dimensions and include information on pattern repeats where it is possible to make a totally custom size.

Many different techniques are included here such as cables, lace, shadow knitting, intarsia and other colorwork techniques, as well as modular knitting and lots of sewing pieces together. The patterns are all presented with charts, but there are line by line written instructions available on the Brooklyn Tweed website if you need them.

The book ends with a deep dive into log cabin knitting, telling the story of the quilt Jared’s mom made and how he made it in knitting, as well as the multitude of variations you can make if you want your own log cabin style design.

The back of the book includes a little written information about some of the special techniques needed, but there are no photos.

This is a lovely book full of inspiration for knitting and crochet blankets for any skill level. If you like to make blankets as gifts or aspire to have a handmade blanket in every room of the house, these designs would be a great place to start.

About the book: 192 pages, paperback, 25 patterns. Published 2024 by Abrams Books, suggested retail price $24.99.

Next Pattern:

Have you read?

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