Try a Celtic Cable for St. Patrick’s Day

There are all sorts of fun Aran cables and Irish-inspired designs that are fun to knit and incorporate into projects at this time of year.

Studio Knit has a great tutorial for an Irish Saxon Braid pattern, which is a little intricate, but as I explained in my video last week, all cables are worked with the same basic moves, even if the result is really intricate.

I think this braid would be lovely knit as a headband. Just make a strip long enough to fit snuggly around your head (make it a little shorter than your actual head circumference so it has to stretch a bit to hold onto your head). Or make it the bottom of a hat — stitch the same strip into a loop and pick up stitches along one side to stitch the hat. So many fun ideas.

Make sure you check out the knit shamrock pattern from a couple of days ago, too, if you’re still looking for some quick St. Patrick’s Day knitting projects!

[Photo via Studio Knit.]

Looking for more Knitted Headband Patterns? Check these patterns out on Etsy. Headbands are a great gift idea as they knit up fast and are well received by friends and family. Everyone loves wearing Knit headbands right?

Generally I like knitting patterns where I feel like you can use whatever yarn you have (because my stash is big enough and I want to use it, thanks) and make a successful project. This is one of those times when a special yarn makes the process that much easier.

The Floral Bouquet Shawl from Xandy Peters uses a specific extended color pooling yarn from Feisty Fibers, which allows you to place the bobble flowers with increasing frequency as you knit the project.

It starts with a solid color yarn, then the two color yarn is added in, and you make a bobble whenever you encounter the color pops. This would be hard to replicate with other yarn that doesn’t have the extended color pooling built in.

The background of the shawl is ribbed, making the project reversible.

The shawl uses fingering/sock yarn and comes out to be an asymmetrical triangle that’s 54 inches/137 cm long and 36 inches/ 90 cm deep and 60 inches/150 cm across the top edge.

Xandy says the pattern is for intermediate to advanced knitters. Knowing how to work traditional bobbles would probably help, but there’s a great video tutorial for how to work the floral bobbles so you can practice on other yarn or even incorporate the bobbles into other projects.

The bobbles are five-petaled flowers but they also kind of look like starfish to me, which could be fun on a child’s cardigan or other pattern. They’d also be fun on the leg of a sock or around the brim of a hat for extra whimsy.

The pattern includes photo and video tutorials, and written and charted instructions. It also includes tips on what to look for if you choose to use different yarn for the project, and instructions on how to dye your own yarn to use in the project.

If you want to give it a try, you can find the pattern on Ravelry.

[Photo: Xandy Peters]

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