Knit Patterns for Warm Up America #WarmUpTogether
A purple box with white text that says: Warm Up America! Join us! Knit Picks and WeCrochet. The Charity that warms peoples' lives. #WarmUpTogether

If you’re longing for connection to community right now, join us! WeCrochet and Knit Picks have partnered with Warm Up America to create afghan and blanket projects to go to seniors and others in need in our communities. If you’re home and looking for something to do, let’s share the love and #WarmUpTogether!

Warm Up America accepts knit and crochet projects and squares made in machine washable yarns. If you would like a full list of washable yarns we offer, scroll to the bottom of this post. Here are the ways you can help . . .

Make a Square to Donate

Warm Up America needs 7×9″ squares in knit or crochet. This is the perfect little project if you have a small amount of yarn at home and need to use it up or if you’re looking for a small craft project to keep the kids engaged. Ship your squares to Warm Up America and they will facilitate getting it to a volunteer who will seam into a blanket for a person in need. Here are some free patterns you can use to create your squares (just remember these patterns might need to be slightly altered to reach the required 7×9″ dimensions).

Knit Patterns to Use for Warm Up America Squares

A great way to create the required 7×9 squares is dishcloth patterns! While there are those that are in different shapes, most are square/rectangle shaped and with a little math, they can be resized to the requirements. Best of all, you easily swap in your favorite yarn if you don’t want to use kitchen cotton.

So first you’ll want to pick your pattern – dishcloths with a simple stitch pattern are easiest to resize to a particular dimension. For instance, the Slipped Stripes Dishcloth has a simple slipped stitch pattern. Right now, the finished size is 10.75″ square.

The Slipped Stripes Dishcloth - a red knitted dishcloth with a striped texture

So we’ll need to do a little math. First, you’ll need to determine how many stitches you are getting with your chosen yarn which means doing a gauge swatch. Let’s say you want to use Brava Worsted and are getting 20 stitches over 4 inches with your chosen needle, which means you are getting 5 stitches per inch. So to get 7 inches, you’ll need to cast on 35 stitches (5×7=35).

Perfect! But a reminder, you’ll want to pay attention to the stitch pattern too – the designer helpfully included a resizing hint in this pattern that to resize, you’ll need to cast on a multiple of 3 + 2 extra stitches, which works perfectly for our estimated cast on (a multiple of 3 is 33, plus 2 extra stitches equals 35 stitches). However, for other stitch patterns, you’ll want to make an adjustment on the count or try another gauge.

To make sure it’s 9 inches high, for this pattern, you’ll simply want to knit the stitch pattern until it is the size you want, then bind off. For others, you may need to do a little more math, similar to what we did above. First, you’ll need to determine your rows per inch on your gauge swatch, then multiply the number by 9 to figure out how many rows your afghan squares should have. As an example, if you are getting 28 rows in 4 inches, that is 7 stitches per inch. so for 9 inches, you’ll want to work for 63 rows.

A couple of other dishcloth patterns we’d recommend as good options for resizing for afghan squares:

Sunny Days Dishcloth: A blue knitted dishcloth with a garter stitch border and a lace-like middle
Sunny Days Dishcloth
Honeycomb Dishcloth: A mint colored knitted dishcloth with a diagonal woven pattern
Honeycomb Dishcloth
Garter Lace Dishcloth: Get a taste of lace knitting with this easy project. With a row of decreases and a row increases separated by bands of stockinette, this project works up quickly and is a wonderful addition to your kitchen.
Garter Lace Dishcloth
Citrine Dishcloth: a yellow knitted dishcloth. Perky little nubbins in nice, orderly rows give this pattern just the right amount of texture to get the job done. The bumps are easy to make without any decreases or increases necessary, just clever little “chains” of knit stitches that pucker forward on the following row.
Citrine Washcloth

If you don’t want to mess around with math (I don’t blame you) but still want to contribute to Warm Up America, why not choose an already made afghan? We have a lot of options for that as well!

Knit Blankets to make for Warm Up America

For quick and easy projects, try one of these beginner-friendly blankets. All of these are knit in bulky weight yarns and use simple knits and purls.

Continuation Blanket: A knitted blanket with a diagonal gradient going from maroon to purple to blue.
Continuation Blanket
A gray knitted blanket draped on a couch. The Abrigado blanket pattern: Made in bulky yarn with an arrow pattern pleasing to the eye, you'll want one for every room in your home.
Abrigado
A green knitted blanket with a basketweave pattern is draped on a wicker chair
Blocks and Ribs Throw
Log Cabin Throw: Capture the classic look of log cabin quilts with this fun and easy throw. Worked from the center out in garter stitch, each block is created by picking up stitches of the previously completed one. The Log Cabin Throw is easy to customize to any size, just work more or fewer blocks until you have the size you desire.
Log Cabin Throw

We hope you find these suggestions helpful and hope you will join us in making projects for Warm Up America!

Donate Here:

Send finished projects or squares to:

Warm Up America
3740 N Josey Ln Suite #152
Carrollton, TX 75007

Learn more about the organization here:

Warm Up America Website

More to Make

If you’re looking for more patterns geared toward making a difference, be sure to check out all of the free patterns available for download from our book Helping Hands: Made with Love, Given with Heart by Stacey Winklepleck.

Suggested Yarns

All projects donated to Warm Up America should be machine-washable. Most donations are in a medium/worsted weight, but any weight yarn will work. We suggest sticking to acrylic, easy-care cottons, and superwash wools. If you’re familiar with WeCrochet and Knit Picks yarns, here are a few we recommend:

Brava
Chroma
Comfy
CotLin
Dishie
Mighty Stitch
Shine
Stroll
Swish
Wool of the Andes Superwash


6 comments

  1. Shannon / March 30, 2020

    Thank you for posting this article! I needed a way to share my knitting gift. I especially love the added bonus of using up some of my stash. P.S. there are more patterns on Warm up America’s website.

    • Stacey / March 30, 2020

      That’s a great point about patterns on the WUA!

  2. Peggy / March 28, 2020

    Why would you advertise patterns that cost money, when people would be donating their time, skill, and materials. I only clicked on three of the patterns, possibly some are free but these were not

    • Stacey / March 30, 2020

      Hi Peggy! We have 2 free blanket patterns and 2 paid patterns in this post! The rest are free dishcloth patterns. I hope that helps!

  3. Jill / March 20, 2020

    Where are the patterns?

    • Erica R / March 23, 2020

      Hi Jill! Click on the images or the names of the patterns in the post – they’ll link you to the patterns on our website.