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]

Even more than normal this year I’ve been trying to use yarn that I already have. I’m doing lots of odd ball projects, scrappy things and small projects, but it’s also nice sometimes to be able to use a whole skein, and just a single skein, on a project for yourself or for a gift.

The Sunburst Shawl by Jem Arrowsmith is a great option if you have a single skein of sock yarn (100 grams or 400-425 meters, which is around 437 to 465 yards) that you don’t want to make socks out of.

The design includes a section of stockinette with blocks of simple lace mesh offset to make a zig-zag design across the shawl that looks sort of like the rays on a drawing of the sun.

The lace is just yarn over, knit 2 together repeating, so this would be a great first lace knitting project if you haven’t tried that before. The designer also has a video tutorial on their website if you need more help with the technique.

You can use any sock yarn you have on hand, but this one is especially fun with the brightly colored, variegated, speckly and sparkly yarns that you might not otherwise know what to do with. The solid section lets the colors play uninterrupted, while the lace part adds a bit of texture and gives a different look to the yarn.

This asymmetrical triangle shawl measures about 73 inches or 185 cm in wingspan and is 18 inches/45.5 cm deep.

There are several completed projects on Ravelry already so you can see who the design looks in different colors and types of yarn, from self stripping to more solid and tonal options.

The pattern is available for free on Ravelry (note: on the designer’s website it says the pattern is free through Aug. 31, 2026, so I’m not sure if it will be free after that on Ravelry), and if you don’t happen to have the perfect skein of yarn to make this project, the designer also offers kits on their website that include the yarn, pattern and a stitch marker.

[Photo: Jem Arrowsmith]

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