This Pattern is Retired…but you can (probably) get it in November

I have a lot of patterns! But I also get overwhelmed if I have to deal with them all at once. So I’ve picked 12 of my favorites (the Core Collection) to keep around. Then every few months, I decide on a theme or a technique and make a handful of related patterns (the Rotating Collection) available for a little while (then they go away again).

The other patterns are retired and are not generally available. However, because I know some folks will want them, I make many the retired patterns available for a few weeks every November. If you want me to tell you when they’re back, subscribe to the mailing list or patreon, and I’ll let you know!

• If you see the buy buttons on this page, you’ve caught it on one of the days it’s available!
• If you don’t see the buy buttons on this page, it’s not currently available.
• If you want to hear when the retired patterns are available (most likely in November), subscribe to the mailing list or patreon, or keep an eye on my instagram.

I’m a sucker for tiny jars. Just about anything seems fancier if it comes in a tiny, pretty jar. Yogurt, mustard, jam, candy, bath salts, candles…you name it, I’ve probably been suckered into buying it by an irresistible jar. And I always think ‘oh, I’ll do something cool with the jar when I’m done!’ And it’s always a lie. I always leave them shoved in the back of a cupboard to taunt me and make me feel bad for having been suckered in by an inanimate object.

But now…well now I’ve started wrapping the jars in little bits of knitting. And somehow this has elevated them from ‘something I hide in the back of my cupboard and never do anything with’ to ‘thing I happily have sitting on my shelf, looking cute.’ I’m not at all sure why. But I suspect I may not be alone in either my fascination with jars, or my sudden urge to swaddle them in knits.

What to do with the sweet, silly little things:

• Use it as a vase (there’s something so marvelous about a tiny, easy to fill vase)
• Hold your desk tools (pens, pencils, scissors)
• Store your bathroom counter stuff (q tips, cotton balls, tampons)
• Attempt to keep your knitting tools all in one place (scissors, stitch markers, needle, tape measure)
• Candleholder (be safe, use an electric candle or even a strand of twinkle lights)

Your imagination is the limit here. I suspect you already have a whole host of ideas for exactly how you could use a few of these!

The pattern is tremendously detailed and gives you lots of options. It includes three different textures (stockinette, reverse stockinette, ribbed) and three different closure methods (seamed, grafted, buttoned), and you can mix and match to make exactly what you want.

This is easy knitting (it’s all worked flat, and it’s about as many stitches as a good sized swatch), and you can probably make one of these in an afternoon.

The only special equipment you’ll need is a jar to wrap. You can use pretty much any size jar (you will want to have the jar handy as you knit to check that your fabric is the right size). You just need to pick one with fairly straight sides (so not a lot of variation between the widest and narrowest points of the jar). Oh and if you want to do a contrasting seam or buttons, you’ll want a few yards of thread and some buttons as well.

The small jars in the pictures are Yoplait Oui yogurt containers, and the big one is from a large candle. The small jars took between 25 and 75 yards of fingering, sport, or dk-weight yarn (this is a perfect thing to do with leftover bits of sock yarn). The large jar took between 75 and 100 yards of worsted or aran-weight yarn.

And just in case you’re feeling a bit nervous, the pattern includes a lengthy photo tutorial to walk you through every step of the process. There are all sorts of helpful tips on everything from how to cast on to how to block them to how and when to weave in your ends. It’s almost absurdly detailed, but it really does mean you can totally make these!