Take It Easy with the Bessie Scarf

Sometimes you just need a little something to occupy your hands that will make a cute and wearable accessory when you’re done.

Enter the Bessie Scarf by Gavriella Treminio , a bias knit garter stitch and eyelet scarf that’s a perfect relatively mindless project.

It’s worked from one of the long ends, so you can make it with a single skein of DK weight yarn (or use another yarn weight if you’d rather) and make it as wide as you want or have yarn available for.

The edges use slipped stitches for a nice clean edge.

This is a great piece to make with one of those special vacation skeins of yarn that you buy because you’re at a local yarn shop and you don’t know what to do with it when you get home. You have those, right?

It makes a lightweight scarf that you can add to an outfit any time of year, and it comes with a bit of history.

Bessie is named for Bessie Coleman, who was the first Black and Native American woman aviator in the United States. She was known for her flying tricks and she encouraged women and Blacks to reach for their dreams. What a lovely legacy and person to reflect on while you knit.

I love a good eyelet pattern, and little holes can be really effective as a way to add a pattern to an otherwise simple project. Here are a few more eyelet projects for you to try.

Many years ago I actually shared a couple more patterns that include eyelets and bias knitting (who knew there were so many?).

The Zeffira top uses eyelets as a design element that starts with dense diamonds at the bottom and fades to single eyelets toward to top. Or try to Lovell top, which has allover eyelets. Both are great projects for spring and summer!

[Photo: Gavriella Treminio]

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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