6 Delightful & Practical Patterns Perfect for the Beginning Knitter

Are you teaching knitters who are ready to move on from garter stitch squares or scarves? Take a look at these fun, free patterns

Whether you’re helping a child, a teenager, or even an adult learn to knit, you’re going to need one essential ingredient: a simple pattern.

Sure, you can have a beginning knitter create a garter stitch square, or even a scarf. Both of those are excellent first knitting projects. But, if you would like to encourage your new knitter to continue this endeavor, you might want to offer him or her a project that’s a little more interesting.

A new knitter may dream about knitting socks or a sweater. Those are usually out of reach for a new knitter. (I say “usually” because I have corresponded with a few knitters who really did learn knitting by creating a sweater!)

You may not be able to help them get through the inevitable frustrations of knitting socks or a sweater, but you can help them by offering patterns for items they can actually use–or an item they’re proud to give to a loved one.

That’s why I collected the patterns below. All of them are simple, and all of them are items they can actually use and/or feel proud to give away. (I was able to knit two of these projects in under 2 hours!)

(There is one non-knitting project below, but it does involve yarn, and you can use it to encourage your new knitter to create something that’s really fun!)

Excellent and Exciting Projects for New Knitters

1. Coffee Cup Sleeve Kids who enjoy hot beverages, especially on the go, will love creating these for themselves. Anyone from young children to adults can easily make this for a quick and easy gift for a parent or a teacher. To knit this pattern, your knitter needs to know only knit and purl stitches. With only 17 rows, these work up very quickly!

2. Flat Hat People of all ages love to make hats! Circular knitting usually isn’t a technique that beginners can take to easily. That’s what makes this such a great pattern for beginners–they’ll knit flat and seam it up at the end. All that’s needed is a little extra instruction in seaming. Any beginner will be thrilled to wear a hat they made themselves!

3. Simple Headband Beginning knitters love to make projects they can actually wear and show off! A hat is great, but in the warmer months (or for knitters without many projects under their belt yet), headbands are even better. They knit up a lot more quickly than hats, too! This simple headband pattern is perfect for the beginning knitter.

4. Pen Pals This is the one project in this collection that doesn’t actually involve knitting. These pencil toppers, however, are absolutely adorable, and they are a fun way to introduce kids to working with yarn.

5. Fleck Stitch Envelope Purse Again falling under the category of “a fun project to make and wear” comes this lovely purse. It’s a beautiful design, and your beginning knitter will be delighted to use a purse she (or he–some men and boys use bags like these, too!) can take, wear, and declare “I made this!”

6. Turn to the Right Bookmark This is probably the most complicated of these patterns. It involves a technique that the designer refers to as “Right Twist” that is a little unusual for a beginner. However, it’s a relatively small project, and the technique is fairly easy to learn.

If you love teaching people to knit, as well as to love yarn, I think you’ll love keeping these patterns handy!