Take Your Scrap Yarn on a Voyage

If all the writing I’ve been doing over the past few months about using your yarn stash and odd balls hasn’t yet inspired you to take on a stash-busting project, maybe this set of patterns will do it.

I love Wool & Pine Designs because many of their designs are really thoughtful in the way they use stash to make something that doesn’t look like a scrap yarn project.

And so it is with the Voyage set. These coordinating patterns for a cardigan, hat and mittens feature bold bands of colorwork such that each section can be two different colors, or you can go through a rotation through the project if you have more of some colors that you want to use.

To take the patterns one at a time, the cardigan is worked from the bottom up, mostly in the round, using steeks for the center front and sleeves. The sleeves are worked seamlessly from the top down using short row shaping, and are shown in the same color as the edging of the sweater. It has 10 sizes, with chest measurements from 30 to 66 inches (76 to 168 cm) and is meant to be worn with no to 4 inches/10 cm positive ease.

The mittens and hat use the same kind of stitch patterns, and you’ll probably want to make sure you have enough yarn to make your mittens match. Or not, if that’s more your style. The mittens are sized for small, medium and large adults, while the hat comes in sizes from newborn through adult large (eight sizes in all). That’s plenty to go through all your leftover sock yarn, mini skeins, skeins that will never really become socks, and then some!

All of the patterns are available on Ravelry as follows: cardigan | mittens | hat. If you order all three at the same time you’ll get a 20 percent discount.

[Photo: Wool & Pine Designs]

Over the years I have shared a lot of pumpkin knitting patterns, and I’ve knit and crocheted a lot of pumpkins myself. But it feels like there are always more fun things to try with knit pumpkins, so this year I wanted to look a little more beyond basic stockinette or ribbed pumpkins and share some pumpkin patterns with cables, bobbles and colorwork.

In the cable collection we’ve got these cute little basic cable and ribbed pumpkins from Elly Bear Knits. There are two sizes that make a wide, flat pumpkin and a taller round pumpkin. Both are worked in the round as a tube that’s cinched top and bottom when you’re done, and they use bulky weight yarn.

Another cute cable pumpkin knitting pattern comes from Gray Bear Akswokrat. This one is knit flat and it looks like a chunky yarn but you could use other weights to make pumpkins of different sizes. This one also has an I-cord stem and uses yarn to cinch up the sections of the pumpkin, giving it a more natural look.

Add some bobbles to your pumpkins with this design from Autumn Shelter Makes. Also worked in the round in a tube, it features a repeating pattern of bobbles and uses yarn wrapped around the outside to make segments. This one looks like worsted weight yarn to me.

Of course there’s nothing that says your pumpkin has to be a single color, so let’s throw in some colorwork. I love the look of the Cozy Fall Pumpkin knitting pattern from South Stitch Girls. The little leather loop adds a rustic touch but you could also just add a stick. These pumpkins have five colorwork options and are worked in worsted weight yarn in the round.

There’s also the Autumn Fair Isle Trio pumpkins pattern from Equestriann Style, which has three different sizes of pumpkins with four colorwork designs. They are worked in super bulky yarn in the round and look good with high contrast or more muted color combinations.

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