55 Free Patterns to Knit Before I Die

Ravelry has this function called the Queue.  It's a place to store all the patterns for things you want to make.  Or things that look really cool.  Or things that are really unique.  Or...  You get the point.  It's a lineup, a place to turn to for inspiration when you're not sure what you want to knit next, and a place to hold all those patterns that you know you'll get to some day.  Maybe you won't get to them; maybe you have QBLE, queue beyond life expectancy.  If you knit every day for the rest of your life, would you be able to get through all the projects in your queue?

I have a queue as well, but sometimes it fails me.  Sometimes I just don't have the right yarn.  There's also the issue of a lot of the patterns in there being far too expensive for my knitting budget.  How can I spend $7 on a pattern?!  That's, like, a skein of yarn or two packages of beads.

So here I have made up a super-queue, a knitting bucket list, to give myself (and hopefully you) some inspiration when my queue just doesn't do it for me.

1. Clapotis - a classic, well-known scarf/wrap/shawl thing that everyone but me seems to have made.  
2. Triangle Entrelac Shawl - who doesn't love a little entrelac in the morning?
3. Vortex Shawl - circular shawl that just wows me every time I see it
4. Glitz at the Ritz - an elegant beaded shawlette
5. Creoso - lace and cables in a unique heavy shawlette
6. Budding Shawlette - another chance to play with lace and beads, this time in a flower motif
7. Begonia Swirl - did I mention I like lace?
8. Elly - just one more, I swear
9. Estuary - two different lace patterns flow together in this water-inspired shawlette
10. Good Day Sunshine - Estonian lace shawlette with serious points
11. Sagrantino Shawl - 20 lace hectagons knit up and sewn together into a shawl
12. Bamboo Wedding Shawl - elegant rectangles of lace interlock in a rectangular shawl.
13. Strips and Stripes - colorwork scarf that plays with horizontal and vertical striping
14. Padma "Pashmina" Wrap - giant lace wrap brimming with elegance
15. Diagonale - laceweight stole
16. Colorplay - a rainbow scarf with fringe on both ends, the best in LGBT knit fashion
17. Pilsener Zigzag Scarf - unique zigzag lace pattern
18. Cerus Scarf - all linen stitch, all the time.
19. Starry Night - beads and lace in a dark blue, lightweight scarf
20. Wishing Cowl - long cabled cowl
21. Fillan Cowl - short cabled cowl
22. Cloche Divine - I don't even wear cloche hats, and I want to make this one
23. Once Upon a Tam - lace tam modeled after a hat from Once Upon a Time
24. Rosalina - cables, lace, and beads, oh my!
25. Pinwheel Beret - brioche in two colors on a slouchy hat
26. Alokananda Beret - stunning cabled beret
27. Rylands Cabled Hat - cabled in an entirely different way
28. Cafe Au Lait Tam - faux-cabled beret
29. Nottingham Hat - a completely different faux-cabled look
30. As the Leaves Begin to Fall - colorwork hat with leaves motif
31. Undergrowth - a completely different colorwork hat with a flower motif at the top
32. Shapely Boyfriend - everybody's got one of these simple cardigans but me
33. Wayside Lace Cardigan - it's knitting sideways!
34. Cadence - boat neck pullover with a lace pattern around the top
35. Pretty Mallory - raglan pullover with lace sleeves
36. Sequoia - shawl-collared vest in a heavy worsted yarn
37. Rose Trellis Shawl Vest - drapey vest with a lace pattern
38. Firelight - cabled vest
39. Thrummed Mittens - you know you want some of these toasty puppies
40. Yummy Mummy Wristwarmers - deliciously cabled fingering weight fingerless gloves
41. Magic Mirror - cabled mittens
42. Citadel Mittens - stockinette and reverse stockinette spell out the pattern in these mittens
43. Rubber Duck Socks - the ultimate in colorwork socks
44. Solstice Socks - mismatched socks that play with the different phases of the sun and moon
45. Basket Weave Rib Socks - unisex socks with an interesting texture
46. Free Bees - fun socks with lace bees 
47. Moon Socks - mmm, slippers
48. A Blanket for Seriously Cold People - giant squooshy bulky weight blanket made entirely of ribbing.
49. Norma - a lovely lace throw blanket
50. Modern Log Cabin Blanket - a bit of an updated look to a classic construction
51. Summer Leaves Throw - lacy summer afghan
52. Fancy Mug Cozy - everyone needs a mug cozy, might as well make it fancy
53. Elephant - isn't his little trunk adorable?
54. Texture Bite - the perfect little teddy bear
55. Catnip Bunny - our furry friends need a little love, too

And if you're a more visual person, I've also compiled all these patterns onto a Pinterest board!  

Ten Things I Would Rather Do Than Weave in Ends

I signed up for a Reddit hat swap in r/knitting a month or so ago, and the person I'm sending to has her heart set on a fair isle hat.  That's cool, I like fair isle.  The hat, based off the DIY Fair Isle Hat pattern by Meg Myers, was really interesting to knit.  I had a chance to flex my creative fingers as I used five different colors of yarn rather than a solid and a variegated, and I also modified part of the pattern so that the top would be a flat square because my partner specifically asked for the hat not to be a beanie.  

It was fun, I have a lot of leftover yarn to play with, all is well.  Except.  Except the inside of the hat.  It's full of loose ends that require weaving in.  I count at least 23.

What a mess!

Uggh.  It's my least favorite thing to do.  I mean, really, I hate weaving in ends and generally go out of my way to avoid it by knitting things in one piece rather than seaming, limiting colors or using creative joins to switch between colors, or simply knotting yarn together and leaving the ends to hang out in any item that's for my personal use.  But none of those are options this time around.

Top Ten Things I'd Rather Do Than Weave in Ends:

1. Donate blood
2. Stare at the wall
3. Pick at hangnails
4. Give my cat a bath
5. Scrub away the grit that builds up behind the toilet
6. Sigh at my yarn stash and dream of other projects
7. Write something for my actual job
8. Drink
9. Rant
10. Pay someone very much money to do it for me

I have another week to finish this up and ship it out (deadline is May 1), so I guess I'll just have to suck it up and get it done.  But I really don't want to.  

Color, Color Everywhere

The other class I took at Vogue Knitting Live was called Slip Sliding Away, and it centered around using slipped stitches to create interesting texture and color combinations.  Melissa Leapman, a famous designer, taught the class in her characteristically laid back, slightly funny, almost meditative way.

Now, this class came with homework.  That's right, homework.  I felt like I was back in college.  Even worse, the homework was boring.  We had to knit 5 test swatches, each a different color, of 21-25 stitches (respectively), in K1P1 ribbing for one inch.  Uggh, so boring.  But I faithfully knit the swatches in the ugliest colors in my scraps bin because those are the scraps with the most yardage.  Look what they became:

Sorry for your eyeballs.

The first swatch played with texture.  Each row moves the slipped stitch over just a tad so that these zigzag patterns emerge in the fabric.

Oooh!

The second swatch is also a texture piece, with elongated stitches creating little boxes that stick up slightly.  I'd love to do a baby blanket with this stitch pattern.

Aaahh!

Then we started to get into playing with color.  Swatch three used three colors, but only one color was worked with at a time.  It made a sort of chevron pattern that looks like a castle to me, but it was way easier than actual chevron with much less counting involved.  I might use this technique to make a hat.

Wow!

Next is this sort of dragon scale stitch.  It doesn't look so great in the swatch, but the samples that the teacher brought were fantastic!

Mmmmmm!

The last stitch we practiced is definitely not something I'm likely to use.  It has cables between columns of colorwork.  Obviously, it's awful with the colors I used (thank you, scrap bin), but even the samples Leapman brought didn't really wow me.  It might be good to use in a man's sweater pattern, but even then it's a bit too much work for the result.

...eeeww...

I would definitely recommend this class to anyone who wants to learn these techniques.  Even if you think you could easily eyeball these swatches and reproduce the stitches, it's still worth your time and money because of how incredibly inspiring it is.  She blew our minds with some of the stitches she's come up with, some of the different ways we can play with color, and it's all so much easier than you'd imagine.  

If you're interested in learning more about these techniques, I would highly suggest Leapman's books, Color Knitting the Easy Way and The Knit Stitch Pattern Handbook, which includes 300 (three-freaking-hundred!) different stitches you can make with knitting.