Stuff You Should Be Knitting

It’s time for the winter edition of Stuff You Should be Knitting. Here in Wisconsin it’s miserably cold (like -25 with the wind chill), so I’m all about warm, bulky projects. The best part? All these patterns are free!

Let’s start off with the Pussy Hat–a pattern that’s gone viral among the knitting community.

The Pussy Hat is a pink, cat-eared hat that many women participating in the Women’s March on Washington DC will be wearing. You can make a hat for yourself to show support or send one to a marcher to keep her warm. Patterns for knitting, crocheting and sewing can be found here.  This hat is knit flat and seamed so it’s a great pattern for a beginning knitter.

A woman in awesome cat eye glasses wears a pink pussy hat

Krysten Ritter, aka Jessica Jones, a knitter herself,  recently posted a pic of herself wearing her super bulky Pussy Hat on her Instagram. Fans of knitting, cute dogs, and general awesomeness should totally follow Ritter.

Now that your ears are toasty, lets move on to keeping your neck warm. Check out this gorgeous bulky, cabled cowl from Purl Soho.  I’ve recently started knitting a lot of patterns that involve cables. It makes for interesting knitting, and I love the textures it produces.

A woman wears a gorgous cabled cowl .

Fans of Doctor Who will recognize this ridiculously long scarf from Season 12.

The story of the scarf goes like this: the costume designer from the show picked up a bunch of yarn and took it to Begonia Pope, asking her to knit a scarf for the character. Pope misunderstood the instructions, thinking he wanted her to use all the yarn, so she did. Hence the giant scarf was born.

Doctor Who is scaling a fence, his long scarf hanging down to the ground.

Knitters and crocheters love to reproduce cool stuff they see on TV so it’s no surprise that patterns for this scarf are out there. My aunt crocheted one for my husband, and he adores it. He’s 6′ 4″ and it he can wrap it around his neck a few times for extra warmth while still having lots of length.

Multiple versions of the scarf can be found here for knitters, including yarn suggestions. For those of you who are happy hookers, the crochet pattern is here.

There are tons of amazing crochet patterns out there for hats, but this one from Purl Soho is one of my favorites. I love whimsical winter hats–and this Tunisian Crochet Pointy Pom Pom hat makes me think of a yard gnome. Did anyone else watch an animated show about gnomes as a kid? And the gnome was a doctor?

A youn girl wears a pointed hat with ear flaps and pom poms on the end of the flaps.

Anyway, back to the hat. You’ll need to know Tunisian crochet to work this project, but if you’re unfamiliar, there are lots of good video tutorials out there–or you could ask for help on Ravelry!

A woman stands outside, wrapped in a rainbow colored blanket.

Not planning on leaving the house? That’s cool, too. I totally approve of that plan.

From home-based warmth we have the Ultimate Palette Blanket from Knit Picks. Palette is one of my favorite yarns–is economical and comes in a million colors. This blanket lets you play with color while making something to snuggle up in. There is a pattern for this blanket in both knit and crochet, too!

A woman sits on a bench, wrapped in a rainbow blanket while a cat head-bonks her.

I’m going to be spending my week working on Pussy Hats for myself and my friends.

What are you making right now? Any patterns you’re loving lately? 

Comments are Closed

  1. I just sent off a pussy hat for Lea to wear at the March! I’m going to knit one for myself now.

    Knitty has a shawl called “Bigger on the Inside” which has an all-over lace pattern, then a border with TARDISes (TARDII?) and the. Another smaller border. It’s a great shawl pattern (and free because Knitty). But this one woman made it epic. She used a colorway called “Exploding TARDIS for the lace, did the TARDIS in blue, and then she used Palette and did the math and knit a sideways Doctor scarf on the last border. LOVE IT. http://www.ravelry.com/projects/AbbyNormal/bigger-on-the-inside-3 I want to knit this.

  2. MirandaB says:

    I’m making the Shapely Boyfriend sweater from Knitty, using In the Navy colorway from Blue Moon. It’s my first sweater, so I’m sort of intimidated by it (although it’s really not hard). I’m ready to divide for the sleeves, so there’s going to be counting.

    For my relaxation/tv knitting, I’m making a cotton blanket from a purchased pattern. It’s in feather and fan with a 4-row pattern repeat that’s so simple I don’t have to look at it anymore. It’s also a stash bust, so nothing wrong there.

  3. Kelly says:

    If you are interested in literary inspired knits, I once knit a giant pillow for my daughter that has the inscription from the One Ring (from Tolkien) knitted into it (using the Elvish script designed by Tolkien). You can see it here: https://knitigatingcircumstances.com/2014/03/30/one-gift-to-rule-them-all/. Thanks for the knitting posts. Reading and knitting are my two obsessions; it’s nice when these two fields cross.

  4. *mumblewhispers* I haven’t picked up my knitting to achieve anything productive in ages. Once, because I managed to drop my cable needle and it took a few days to locate it, and last weekend, because the snow and ice were making my ride just way too bumpy and I didn’t want to get car sick. And December was crazy busy even without the holiday extras. *sigh* I’m a dilettante.

  5. Lostshadows says:

    I haven’t made anything in a while, but I did pick up a couple of cute looking amaguri crochet kits yesterday. One is Woodland Crochet*, the other is Yummy Crochet. They come with yarn and assorted bits to make a couple of the patterns, so I’m looking forward to giving them a go.

    *If you see this kit out there, be warned that it lies about having everything you need. I don’t think any of the patterns use the included hook size. Certainly not the ones they provided yarn for. The food one did get that part right.

  6. catses says:

    Oops, sorry, forgot to end the link text.

  7. Becky (@Fibrobabe) says:

    If you like gnomes, and you or someone you know drinks wine, you should check out the Korknisse pattern. I make them up as Christmas ornaments, and it sounds like others leave the loop off the top and put them on a shelf or the mantle. They work up fast, use up little bits of leftover yarn, and they’re ridiculously cute.

    knit version: http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/korknisse
    crochet version: http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/crochet-korknisse

    I’m working on pussyhats right now, too. I’ll be dropping a couple in the mail tomorrow for friends who are marching in Boston and DC, and if I can manage it, I’ll be handing them out at the rally in Indianapolis.

  8. Bnbsrose says:

    I haven’t picked up needles in ages. Not since the great cowl-a-thon of 2015. That was when every Outlander fan I knew posited “You knit, right?”. I have some chunky dusty lavender yarn that is screaming to be made into that cabled cowl. Since I never did get around to making one for myself. And I really enjoy the challenge of cables.

    Otherwise, I am gobsmacked by your projects ladies. You are brilliant.

  9. Heather says:

    At the moment I’m making fingerless gloves for everyone around me. There are tons of patterns I love, but two of my favourite come from the amazing Needles and Artifice (Cooperative Press), which has lots of brilliant (if not always easy) steampunk designs.

  10. Emily G says:

    I’m on a baby blanket/sweater kick since everyone I know is reproducing… Since I get bored with long projects I like to switch between a few. Mostly knitpicks patterns and yarns at the moment for these projects (comfy and wool of the Andes)

  11. Varian says:

    I messed up that last post, sorry.

    I meant to say I’m making a shawl that can double as a giant scarf.

  12. Hopeful Puffin says:

    The only thing I ever knitted in my entire life was the Tom Baker (Dr. Who #4) scarf. It took the entire summer of 1983 and was a magnificent thing. I had the whole costume for when I went to sci-fi conventions.

    Sadly, mice got to it in the early 00s.

  13. Pamala says:

    Sadly, I am all thumbs and cannot knit, but I can shop with the best of them. In other words, if one of you talented ladies want to set up an Etsy store or just a private client kind of situation, where I can buy ALL THE THINGS, I am here for you. 😀

  14. Maureen says:

    I just learned to cast on yesterday, and my friend tried to teach me the knit stitch-and she finally gave up. Came home and worked on it forever-can you recommend a yarn that is easy to work with for beginners? I have the hardest time catching that loop on the knit stitch-but I had really thin yarn that I had bought in hopes of making a cotton washcloth. Any help for a knitting newbie?

    I can crochet, but the knitting doesn’t seem to make sense to me, and I feel so clumsy with the needles. I REALLY want to learn though.

  15. Liz says:

    I started to crochet a pussyhat but soon realized it was going to look like something a third grader made (and I don’t mean a talented third grader) so when we march in DC next week, my middle schoolers and I will be wearing pink fleece polka dot hats we sewed, using the pussyhat project directions. 🙂

    Thanks for the inspiration though because my goal this year is to up my yarn game.

  16. Lostshadows says:

    @Maureen I sympathize with you on knitting. All forms of knitting instructions I’ve tried just make my brain go, WTF?, but I keep trying.

  17. Liz says:

    @Maureen, a thicker wool might help. I found this video really easy to follow and the wool is really bulky. https://www.woolandthegang.com/how-to/knit/how-to-knit-a-hat

  18. Maureen says:

    @Liz-thanks so much for that link! I watched a bit of one, and I think it will really help! Hopefully, the thicker wool, and maybe larger needles (I think mine are 9’s?) will be better for me to start off with, until I can get motion down.

  19. Nadine says:

    Early last week I sent three pink pussyhats to the project address. I adapted the chunky knit pattern to knit from the top down in the round. They were fairly quick to work up. Currently I’m getting back to a jacket knit in Homespun (so cozy, fuzzy), but I’m taking a quick break from that again to work up a couple of hat and scarf sets in a bulky wool.

  20. Jazzlet says:

    I’m knitting a cable sampler blanket/afgan.

    Which is a patchwork blanket with (at the moment) a different cable pattern for each square and a variety of blues through purples to pinks. I don’t know yet how many cable patterns there will be, I got Cables Untangled by Melissa Leapman a while back whch has a library of cable patterns and I want to try all of them! Ihave been pondering this project for a while, in the end I have gone for buying a load of Rowan 50/50 wool/cotton without planning exactly which cable patterns I’m going to use or what colours. The reason for the selection of colours is partly because I didn’t want to have to calculate how much I’d need for the hole thing and partly because I couldn’t have afforded to buy enough to do the whole thing in one go, this way it won’t matter if, when I buy more yarn, the different dye lots of each colour are slightly different shades as they won’t be next to each other when I make the blanket up.

    I have difficulty concentrating at times because of chronic pain and the drugs I take to control the pain so this project is perfect as each square is small, and if I really fuck it up I’m not unravellling hours of work. I’m also using it to practise not letting the perfect be the enemy of the jolly good, at one time I’d have planned it all out before I started, but I after a lot of pondering I realised if I tried to do that I’d never start, so I’ve just dived right in. And the worst comes to the worst I’ll get a cushion cover out of it!

  21. @Maureen,

    Liz is right. A thicker yarn will help. Also make sure it’s NOT cotton. Wool is best for now. Cotton has no give to it in yarn form so it will make learning to knit more difficult. You want something with some stretch to it, and wool will fit the bill nicely.

    You can always move on to cotton later once you get the hang of things.

  22. Jazzlet says:

    @Maureen knitting in cotton is harder than knitting in wool as it ‘gives’ less as you work it, so a project with thicker yarn that gives more will be easier. Good luck!

  23. genie says:

    I am making my very first pair of socks, AND a pink pussyhat for next Saturday, AND a cabled scarf, AND a friend’s Christmas present (an awesome cowl, much better than the one that ended up being entirely taken apart because it ended up not being nice looking at all). I cannot start anything else until I finish these things.

  24. Mae says:

    David the Gnome!

    I’m currently crocheting Fortune’s Shawlette in full shawl size, and after that (or when I need a break) I have a new sock knitting pattern I got for Christmas to try out.

  25. EC Spurlock says:

    Trying to expand my client base so I am starting to design in crochet for the first time. (Hopefully my patterns will be understandable because I can’t write a conventional crochet pattern for shizzle, I just jot down however I understand it.) Started with a spiral pattern hat; I did the prototype in a soft angora and sent it to my cousin who is going through chemo. The pattern I will be selling will also include pebble beads and will look more dressy. Also doing a version in bedspread cotton with beads that will be even more dressy. I’m calling them Chemo Chic.

    @Maureen, I have the same problem trying to learn knitting after doing crochet all my life. I understand the basics of how the stitches work but I am so paranoid about dropping the stitches off the ends of the needles that I get all tense and my hands stiffen up.

  26. Melanie says:

    My second pussy hat is on the needles right now. The first one was for me; this one is for a colleague. I have enough pink yarn for one more.

  27. Mae says:

    @Kelly your pillow is gorgeous! I think I’m going to have to try out the One Ring scarf you got the chart from, because it is awesome – and slightly more likely to be used in my house of Tolkien nerds than the large pillow I wouldn’t want anyone to touch and mess up.

  28. kkw says:

    @nadine How did you adapt the pussy hat to knit top down? Did you do that kind of figure 8 cast on thing with the yarn like for a toe up sock? The pattern knits up really quickly and I don’t mind the kitchener stitch as much as regular seaming, but anything that’ll help me make more faster is genius.

  29. denise says:

    I remember a guy in high school, mid-80s, wearing the Dr. Who scarf and a trench coat. Plus a hat.

  30. GHN says:

    I have four lace shawls on the needles at the moment. And I have just ordered undyed yarn (in several natural wool colors) to knit myself a classical Shetland hap (yes, I’m ambitious.)

  31. Maureen says:

    Thanks to everyone for your advice! I ended up getting several pairs of larger needles, and a bulkier wool yarn. I started with the big needles (17) and I couldn’t believe it-I could see the loops and I was doing the stitch!! I practiced on that and then dropped down to 13’s-and am now making a scarf-no pattern just stitches for now. I never would have thought I would be doing this 24 hours ago-so THANK YOU!!!

  32. Elyse says:

    @Maureen when I first started knitting i tried cotton too and it was awful–no stretch! Wool is the way to go for beginners.

    @Jazzlet I feel your pain (literally). Sometimes my fibro meds make me fuzzy headed. I once cross stitched something so messed up my hubs said it looked like a symbol to summon the devil LOL

  33. Dani S. says:

    That Ultimate Palette Blanket is pretty, but the thought of knitting an entire blanket in fingering weight yarn give me hives!

    I’m currently knitting a stretchy infinity scarf. It is my first time doing fisherman’s rib and I’m enjoying the squishy fabric it produces.

  34. Nadine says:

    @kkw Yes, I just did it as if it was a toe-up sock (but w/o the increases of course). I used “Judy’s Magic Cast-on” with two short circular needles and after a few rows I moved all the stitches to one circular needle.

  35. LisaH says:

    I’m finishing up a pair of Treads tipless gloves http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/treads-a-tipless-gloves-pattern out of Forbidden Woolery Gluttony worsted in Gridlock (a gorgeous heathered charcoal). Then I’ll be making a matching hat. Late Christmas gifts, but worth it.

  36. Malin says:

    I have knitted in total three Doctor Who scarves and while they are very simple knitting projects, sewing in the ends once you’re finished is a right pain. Only the last one I made got the proper fringes. My husband really wants one (the ones I’ve made were for a good friend, my father-in-law and myself) and I’ve said he needs to learn how to knit, so he can make himself one.

    So happy to have discovered Knitty. How did I not know about this? I’ve been a member of Ravelry for years, but now I clearly need to explore Knitty as well.

  37. Laine says:

    Do not let your husband learn to knit! My husband took a ball of my wool to knit a cover for his golf putter many years ago. Couldn’t get any more yarn and my sweater never got finished. Your stash will never be safe again.

  38. Carol S says:

    Am on the way home from Vogue Knitting: Live — excited to see a lovely display of Rowan yarns and samples at the Churchmouse booth. I’m a huge Rowan fan from way back and am waiting for the new Magazine to get some ideas for spring….

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