Category Archives: Free Pattern

Happy New Year!

During the last few weeks I’ve been knitting hats. I’ve been using the balloon blocking trick for blocking them like I wrote about in my Late Night Hat post. I figured out that you need to blow the balloon up smaller than your head size to get a snug fit. Try about an inch less than the head measurement and it should work.

Of all the hats that I’ve designed lately I thought this one–which I call New Year’s Cap– is worthy of a write up and post. I went with several classic Fair Isle componentes: corrugated ribbing, no more that 2 colors per row, and a fancy star on top. Below you will find the link to download the Free Pattern.

new-years-cap Download

Winter Wise Mittens

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Just for kicks I asked OpenAI to write a knitting pattern for a scarf and a stocking hat. It did! I asked it to explain color theory in Fair Isle knitting and it did! I asked it to write about the history of Fair Isle Knitting and it got the time period wrong by saying they liked colorful knitting there in the 1600’s. Not true! It does not know the difference of a Latvian braid and cable technique. So it’s like a beginning knitter—give it time!

Back to real life… It’s officially winter! I’ve been working on this pattern over the last week and wrote it up to share. I’m still obsessed with Latvian braids. I’m also really into fancy thumbs. It’s a little fussy to do the thumbs but well worth it for the finished product. Short double pointed needles make it more enjoyable for me to knit thumbs. I highly recommend them.

Here’s the pattern for Winter Wise Mittens:

winter-wise-mittens Download

Superstar Mittens

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There are so many available knitting patterns now. Designing is interesting because it seems like everything has already been done so it’s quite the exercise to try to create something new. The Nordic star and been knitted a million times. Mittens are made in every color combination that you could think of. When I design mittens on my computer I will rework the motifs over and over again looking for a novel combination. When it comes to colors I can spend hours arranging balls of yarn on the floor like a crazy person.

My latest creation is called Superstar for no reason other than the star is big. I’m posting the pattern here for free. If you make them please send me a photo or post on Ravelry. It’s such a joy to see what people make with my patterns.

superstar-mittens Download

Late to the Party

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After a recent kick of making hats, I finally found a good way to block hats–balloons! What took me so long? I blew them up to a 22 inch diameter and set the soaked hats on them to dry.

Talk about late to the party, I also just discovered Latvian braids! I just randomly decided to try them out on a hat and I love how they look. There are lots of youtube videos to help you understand how to make Latvian braids. I watched a few before trying it on a hat.

I chose my favorite hat and wrote up a pattern to share. I titled it Late Night Hat because I was late to learn about the balloon blocking and Latvian braids.

There are 5 color in this hat. If you choose colors that you already have consider using 3 dark shades and 2 light shades. For contrast, the Latvian braid should have 1 light color and 1 dark color. The background colors (main color 1 and main color 2) are both dark. The contrasting color is light and is the same for all the stranded colorwork. I used Knit Pick’s Palette and listed the colors in the pattern, but you could use other fingering weight yarns. Of course I recommend 100% wool.

Here’s the Free Pattern for Late Night Hat.

late-night-hat-updated-12_30 Download

Men’s Christmas Mittens

Mesquite, Nevada

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I’m waiting on a yarn order to start some new pattern ideas using warm color. In the meantime I took a look at my stash and found some semi-warm tones and worked up a mitten pattern that I had been thinking about. Now that I’m down in Mesquite I’m seeing warm colors all around me. In the spirit of these warm colors I put together this combo using Knit Pick’s Oyster Heather, Asphalt, Hazelnut, and Brass Heather.

I love a fancy mitten thumb! I had this idea in my head the other day when I woke up so I went to my computer and started working it out on a graph. I’ve written the up the pattern below and I’m giving it out for FREE. Enjoy!

mesquite-mittens Download

Dark Sky Mittens

Mittens for Extra Large Hands

Darling Children’s Mittens

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Size Large, with Autumn Heather as Main Color

Size Medium, with Aurora Heather as Main Color

With my abundance of Knit Pick Palette fingerling weight yarn I went to work on a children’s mitten pattern that nicely fits small hands. I have plenty of left over yarn from all the mitten-making so this seemed like a good thing to work out as a use for small amounts of yarn.

Since children have such different sized hands I simply could not say “age 4” and have that make scenes. My grand baby that is 2 years old has bigger hands than his sister that is 3 1/2 years old. I went ahead and knitted all the sizes and measured them, that way you can take a measurement of a child’s hand and pick the right size in the pattern for them.

Here’s the FREE pattern. Enjoy!

DarlingChildren’sMittens.updated2025 Download