Treat Yourself by Knitting the Mindful Mosaic Blanket

Every year as the weather starts to get colder I like to pull out one of my longstanding scrappy blanket knitting projects. Yes I said one of the them, because I have more than one (and actually there’s a crochet one, too!). I love being able to use what I have to make something beautiful, and one day I’ll have all those blankets finished and I’ll never be cold again.

The Mindful Mosaic Blanket from Berroco would be great to work just as a scrappy blanket, making each square a different color based on what you have left over from other projects.

But the idea behind it is a little more meaningful. It’s meant to be a mood blanket, which is like a temperature blanket but it’s about your feelings rather than the weather outside.

Choose a range of colors to represent different feelings, and stitch a square each day to reflect your mood. The sample blanket uses a worsted weight cotton yarn, but you can use whatever you like or a mix if you’re working from stash.

Instead of buying new yarn for this project, you could make it both a mood blanket and a stash busting project by choosing yarn you already have to represent different moods. For example, any purple yarn from your stash might be designated as happy, so even if the squares don’t all match you know what they meant. Or you can choose an odd ball each day that represents how you feel even if the colors don’t always match the same feeling.

I love this idea as a way to track almost a year (the pattern says it takes around 357 squares, but you could always add more) especially if you need help paying attention to your emotions. But I also think it would be a great winter project to just make with the odd balls in your house. It’s sure to make you feel a bit of comfort either way.

You can grab this free pattern from Berroco. And if you’d rather crochet your feelings, there’s a crochet version, too.

[Photo: Berroco]

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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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