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.]

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?