Wear a Banned Book on Your Sweater

September 10, 2025 by Sarah White

I’ve been saving this sweater knitting pattern to share with you for a long time but I thought it would be appropriate to do around Banned Books Week, which is in October, and it’s good timing on my part because the theme for 2025 is “Censorship is so 1984.”

Catherine Waterfield designed this sweater to look like a Penguin Classics book, and the title she chose was Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell.

As an aside, I don’t think they make orange covered classics anymore in the United States, though there was a special set of 12 done recently that are fancier than the original orange books. (They do still print them in Australia and maybe other countries as well.)

This sweater is worked in pieces from the bottom up and seamed together. The colorwork includes stripes and intarsia (the lettering can be done with stranded knitting) and it has a folded hem.

It calls for “lofty DK” or worsted weight yarn and is available in four sizes. The bust measurements range from 36 to 46 inches, or 91 to 117 cm, and it’s meant to be worn with 2-4 inches/5-10 cm of positive ease.

You could of course use these charts on any sweater pattern that fits to make a banned book sweater of your own.

The colorwork is charted and the pattern includes a full alphabet for both the title and author name so you don’t have to make yours the same book if you don’t want to. You can make it your favorite book that is a Penguin classic, or even if it’s not I won’t tell.

The pattern is a free download on Ravelry. You can look through the finished projects other people have done for inspiration on different titles to use. Some of the projects didn’t use orange yarn, some don’t use the penguin logo, there’s even one that turned it into a tote bag. What book would you put on your sweater?

[Photo: Catherine Waterfield]

Have you read?

Beyond Basic Pumpkin Knitting Patterns

Over the years I have shared a lot of pumpkin knitting patterns, and I’ve knit and crocheted a lot of pumpkins myself. But it feels like there are always more fun things to try with knit pumpkins, so this year I wanted to look a little more beyond basic stockinette or ribbed pumpkins and share some pumpkin patterns with cables, bobbles and colorwork.

In the cable collection we’ve got these cute little basic cable and ribbed pumpkins from Elly Bear Knits. There are two sizes that make a wide, flat pumpkin and a taller round pumpkin. Both are worked in the round as a tube that’s cinched top and bottom when you’re done, and they use bulky weight yarn.

Another cute cable pumpkin knitting pattern comes from Gray Bear Akswokrat. This one is knit flat and it looks like a chunky yarn but you could use other weights to make pumpkins of different sizes. This one also has an I-cord stem and uses yarn to cinch up the sections of the pumpkin, giving it a more natural look.

Add some bobbles to your pumpkins with this design from Autumn Shelter Makes. Also worked in the round in a tube, it features a repeating pattern of bobbles and uses yarn wrapped around the outside to make segments. This one looks like worsted weight yarn to me.

Of course there’s nothing that says your pumpkin has to be a single color, so let’s throw in some colorwork. I love the look of the Cozy Fall Pumpkin knitting pattern from South Stitch Girls. The little leather loop adds a rustic touch but you could also just add a stick. These pumpkins have five colorwork options and are worked in worsted weight yarn in the round.

There’s also the Autumn Fair Isle Trio pumpkins pattern from Equestriann Style, which has three different sizes of pumpkins with four colorwork designs. They are worked in super bulky yarn in the round and look good with high contrast or more muted color combinations.