You Still Have Time to Knit Christmas Ornaments

It may feel like Christmas is right around the corner, and it is, but there’s still time to add to your handknit holiday collection with the addition of some knit Christmas ornaments.

The great thing about ornaments is that most of them are small, so you can knit them up in an evening or two. They don’t use a lot of yarn, and you probably have something in the house you can use.

And if you haven’t gotten to all of the gift knitting you wanted to do, you can knit an ornament for everyone on your list and use it to decorate the gift bag with the store-bought gift inside for a little handmade sweetness.

There are tons of free knit Christmas ornament patterns on Ravelry, and this is almost a random sampling just to give you some ideas of the variety that is out there.

Carolyn Kennington has some great little Santa hat and Christmas tree ornaments in her Christmas decorations pattern. Or try the sweet Santa Hat for the tree from the Natural Suburbia blog.

Becky Kibblewhite made a lovely knit version of Christmas tree candles you can check out on her blog.

There are so many great Christmas ball patterns, including a collection from Mary Ann Stephen’s Two Strands blog (PDF), Nadia Majid’s pretty blue Christmas Bauble, a sweet collection from MillaMia Sweden, and a collection of stars and balls from Red Heart, to name just a few. Paton’s has a pretty diamond-shaped “ball” as well. Or try a Christmas Pudding Bauble from Amanda Berry. So cute!

Amalia Samios can help you spell JOY in knitting on your tree, while Ginny Sturdy spreads love with her holiday hearts. And there’s always Minutia, the annual collection of tiny Christmas sweater ornaments from Berroco.

And while they don’t necessarily have to go in the tree, Rebecca Danger has a great collection of little critters — an elf, a snowman and a couple of Christmas monsters — in her free Knit Picks collection A Very Danger Christmas. I also love the little Christmas elf peg dolls from Knitted Toy Box.

That should certainly get you started! Have you ever knit ornaments for the holiday tree? I’d love to know what you’ve made or what you’re working on now.

Looking for more Christmas themed Knitting patterns? Check out some of our favorite Knitting patterns on Etsy and

These Christmas Knitting Pattern Books on Amazon

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.

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