Warm Up America Wants You to Stitch Your State

Warm Up America is a fabulous charitable organization that encourages people to knit or crochet and assemble blankets or other items that can be donated locally or given to the national organization to be distributed where they are needed.

But now they’re asking knitters and crocheters to help with a different kind of project: a banner that will be displayed at trade shows and used in advertising.

Warm Up America goes to events like Stitches and Vogue Knitting Live to raise awareness of its programs, and it wants to show that its knitters come from across the country with the Stitch Your State campaign.

Interested knitters are asked to create a 7 by 9 inch block that has something to do with their state. It could include the name or shape of the state in stitching, a state bird or flower, or anything else you want that represents your state.

Register to become part of the challenge (there’s a link at the page linked above) and send in your submission along with the submission form by Sept. 5. One design from each state will be chosen during the week of Sept. 19 to be part of the banner. Selected blocks will be shared on social media and the finished banner will be used in advertising, at trade shows and on display at the Warm Up America office.

This sounds like such a fun challenge. I’d love to know if any of you enter.

[Photo via Warm Up America.]

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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