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?

One of the fun things about knitters is that we will use a holiday theme on any kind of project. From Easter bunny socks to Christmas sweaters, there’s no combination of holiday motif and knitwear genre we won’t combine.

Case in point: Halloween cowls.

This fun cowl from Sweet Vireo Designs features large carved pumpkins and little cats and skulls. It uses two colors of DK weight yarn and I love the multicolored yarn for the background color on this one. And the braids! So cute.

Spooky Season by Jocelyn Tunney (also on Ravelry) uses fingering weight yarn in two colors to make a design with crescent moons and eyes. There are two circumferences and two heights available so you can make it a neck hugger or a slightly bigger project if you like.

Make more moons with the Broom Riding Cowl from Vanessa Ewing Knits. This two color pattern looks extra fun with a multicolored yarn for the colorwork, but you can use a solid as well. It calls for DK weight yarn but there is also a fingering weight version if you have some yarn in your stash you want to use.

Jinx Made has another fun Halloween cowl, this time covered in skulls. South Philly Skulls uses DK weight yarn and comes in two lengths, and there’s also a matching hat pattern, both of which can be found on Ravelry.

The Ghost Stories cowl from Melissa Knit Wear is a two-color cowl with ghosts of different sizes on the body. It uses DK weight yarn, and average sized skeins will allow you to get two cowls out of two skeins. It also calls for stitch markers to help you keep your place in the chart.

Or stitch up a cowl with a giant bat on it. The Nightling Cowl from Jen Immer uses DK weight yarn in two colors and has moons and a large bat on it. This pattern can be found on Ravelry.

How about spooky trees? The Weirwood Cowl from Andrea Krüß-Anders is inspired by the weirwood trees in the Game of Thrones books, and is worked in two colors of fingering weight yarn. You can find this free pattern on Ravelry.

If a bandana cowl is more your thing, try Cowloween from Tellybean Knits (on Ravelry). This colorful design is worked from the top down and features pumpkins, ghosts and candy colored stripes, and is worked in a light fingering weight yarn. There are kid and adult sizes available.

Have you read?