Hi there! Let me walk you through all the accessories and adorable little things I knit this year, what yarns I chose, and how I feel about the finished objects!
If you missed the video about all the sweaters I made in 2025, you can watch it here - Trying on all the sweaters I knit in 2025
Is there anything I missed? Ask me questions!
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This is the right place if you are looking for a fresh knitting podcast or just want to have a knitting companion while you’re working on your project.
Here are my hand knit accessories that I knit in 2025:
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Icelandic Mini Sweater by Bare Knit (scrap yarn, mostly Finull by Rauma)
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Setesdal Tova Votter by Sandnes Garn (Fritidsgarn by Sandnes Garn, colors: 1012 and 6573)
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Candy Cane Headband by Bare Knit (Sandnes Garn Petiteknit Double Sunday in colorway 1012 Cream and Sandnes Garn Double Sunday in colorway 4219 Red)
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Donuts by Bare Knit (Scheepjes Catona in colorway Topaz 179, Scheepjes Catona in colorway Bridal White 105, Finull by Rauma in colorway dusty rose, Lullu boucle in colorway Vandmelon), the pattern is not published yet
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Marius headband (Peer Gynt by Sandnes Garn in colorways 1001, 5575, 4018)
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Self-drafted 1-by-1 ribbed hat (Luxury Hand-dyed Happiness merino extrafine DK from Rico in colorway 004)
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DRK Everyday Cowl by Andrea Mowry (Multi Popcorn by Dale Garn in colorway 501 white)
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Nordland Water Bottle Cover by Bare Knit (Rauma Finull in colorway 4087 and 0401)
Chapters
- Introduction (0:00)
- Icelandic Mini Sweater (0:46)
- Setesdal Tova Votter (5:32)
- Candy Cane Headband (11:47)
- Donuts (15:01)
- Marius headband (19:39)
- 1-by-1 ribbed hat (25:14)
- DRK Everyday Cowl (28:50)
- Nordland Water Bottle Cover (33:46)
Icelandic Mini Sweater - a Christmas tree ornament
This is actually one of the last projects I made in 2025, but I'm still in a Christmassy, New Year's mood, so I wanted to start with it. These are tiny little Icelandic sweaters for the Christmas tree. Each one is a one or two hour knit.
This year we bought a Christmas tree, and of course we didn't have any ornaments at all. I didn't want the ones with no soul, all in the same color or two. I wanted something unique. So we bought a couple of playful, very non-classic ones (Star Wars, Harry Potter), and the rest I wanted to knit myself. These two sweaters were the first ornaments I made for my tree.
Why Icelandic? Because this is actually why I started knitting. About 10 years ago I traveled to Iceland, saw those sweaters, and just fell in love with them. But they were crazy expensive, and I didn't buy one. A couple of years later I found the one that I liked the most, but it was a pattern, not a sweater I could buy. So I decided: hey, I can just learn how to knit and make it myself. This is how my knitting journey started.
When I was looking for ornaments like these on Ravelry and Etsy, I couldn't find anything that I liked. So I made my own, and published it as the Icelandic Mini Sweater pattern.
Yarn: both of mine are fingering weight scraps, but you can use whatever you want. It is just a matter of size: the thicker the yarn, the larger the sweater. A perfect stash-busting project for a couple of hours.
Setesdal Tova Votter - my first (intentionally) felted project
Still in a wintry mood: mittens! Setesdal Tova Votter by Sandnes Garn is a pattern where you are expected to felt the mittens. You knit a really big thing, and they were enormous before felting! Then you put them in the washing machine on a normal program, not a wool wash, with a normal detergent, not a wool one. They shrink, and you have your mittens.
Yarn and needles: Fritidsgarn from Sandnes Garn, two balls of white and one ball of light blue, on 6 mm needles. I still have some yarn left.
I made them with my knitting club. We gather once a month and pick a project that everyone works on.
Double pointed needles or magic loop? Everyone in the room was using double pointed needles. There are often people in the club who are not so experienced, or who have never knitted before, and I try to help them. So I used DPNs as well, just to stay on the same page. And I'm not a fan. I'm fully in the magic loop group! I know how to use DPNs, and if I have nothing else at hand, of course I will use them. But I hate all those ends sticking out, and it is so slow and uncomfortable for me.
I should admit one good thing about them, though. With colorwork, DPNs are a little bit better for the floats. When you switch from one needle to the next, it is easier to keep a good float length. With magic loop, the two needles are very close to each other at the switch, and it is very easy to end up with a float that is shorter than it has to be. So every time I switch, I make sure that the float is long enough.
So the first mitten I knit on DPNs, and I struggled all the way through. The second one I knit at home with magic loop, and it just flew off my needles.
The scary part: felting. I had felted something before, but not intentionally. It was my Icelandic sweater, the very one I learned to knit for, and I felted it in the washing machine. After that I never washed any knits in the washing machine again, everything goes by hand. So putting these mittens in the machine on purpose was a little bit scary. But I hoped that the pattern writers know what they are doing, and I trusted the process. Everything went well, and now I have a really cool pair of mittens. It is quite cold here in Norway right now, so they are just the perfect accessory to have.
Candy Cane Headband
I never made a dedicated Christmas sweater for myself, but this year I wanted something more festive. I couldn't find a headband pattern that would look Christmassy, cute and fun to wear, so I made the Candy Cane Headband.
How it is made:
- It is knit in the round, in colorwork: two stitches in red (or whatever color you like), two stitches in white, all the way, until the length is good for you. You can just put it on to check.
- In the end, you graft the stitches together.
- It is double layered and completely reversible. The pattern is continuous, with no jog where the colors don't match.
Yarn: Double Sunday from Sandnes Garn, DK weight, 100% wool. I think it was the first time I used this yarn, and I was amazed. It is not superwash, but it is so soft that I couldn't believe it. No itchy feeling at all. This is what you want from a headband, at least in my case, because I have quite a sensitive forehead.
I still wanted the headband to be thick, to wear it in colder weather. Double layer plus colorwork makes it pretty warm. I live in Norway, you need this warmth! So far the yarn wears well, with no pilling. I can only recommend it.
Donuts - more tree ornaments
Another ornament pattern that I came up with myself. I haven't published it yet, but eventually I will. I made three donuts. Each one has two colors: the bottom looks like dough, and the top is the frosting. Just a normal donut, as you expect it to look.
Then the toppings:
- My favorite one has colorful beads on top.
- Another one has dark brown beads, plus a thread of yarn on top to look like a chocolate topping.
- On the third one I embroidered some yarn on top, to make it more colorful and fun.
How they are made: I went full scale with German short rows. I'm a big fan of them, and I use them whenever a sweater needs some shaping. You knit the bottom and the top of the donut separately. For each part you cast on, knit back and forth, working fewer stitches every other row to create the shape, and repeat that several times until you have a circle. Then you graft the two parts together, and the donut is ready for the toppings.
Yarn: the dough side is a beige cotton yarn. I bought it several years ago for the rainbow sweater that Hugo the zebra is wearing. The white frosting is the same cotton. The pink one is Finull from Rauma, the same pink yarn as the sweater I'm wearing in the video. For the purple one I held cotton together with a pink bouclé yarn. The exact names are in the list above. On top it is scrap yarn, beads, and everything you can find to be creative.
They are quick and fun to make, and you can go as creative as you want with your favorite donuts.
Marius headband
Another knitting club project. Marius is a very traditional Norwegian pattern, and people make whatever you can come up with from it: mittens, socks, hats. I have a Marius sweater as well.
Yarn: Peer Gynt from Sandnes Garn in three colors: white, dark blue and red. I think the reason for those three colors is to be similar to the colors of the Norwegian flag, and maybe this is one of the reasons why the pattern is so popular. We worked from a book in the club, so I don't remember the name of this exact pattern or the designer behind it.
This headband is my third attempt! In the pattern, you cast on, make some ribbing, knit the chart, and finish with ribbing. But when I followed the chart fully, it turned out too wide. It went really far up, and basically looked like a hat without decreases. No, it didn't look good. I removed a couple of rounds, and it was better, but still not enough.
So here is what I did in the end:
- Provisional cast-on with as many stitches as I needed for my head circumference.
- Several plain rounds, about half of the height of the chart. This is half of the back side.
- A folding ridge: knit two together, yarn over, all the way around.
- The chart, modified: I removed several rounds in the middle part and a few of the plain blue rounds.
- Another folding ridge.
- The other half of the back side.
- Three-needle bind-off to join the end with the live stitches from the provisional cast-on.
I skipped the ribbing completely, because it would add to the width again.
What I would do differently: Kitchener stitch instead of the three-needle bind-off. The bind-off leaves a line on the inside. If I only put the headband on, it's okay. But after a couple of hours I start feeling that line. If I were more motivated, I would unravel just the bind-off and graft it. But it's not too bad, I can't be bothered, and for walks it works well.
Self-drafted 1-by-1 ribbed hat
I made this hat in January, or maybe in February. It is quite a fun one, but I don't wear it too much. I like bright colors, but apparently, when I wear it, it feels a little bit too bright to my taste.
Yarn: Luxury Hand-dyed Happiness merino extrafine DK from Rico Design. I can never remember the name, because it is so long! It is crazy soft, like soft butter. You just want to hold it and never put it down. An amazing yarn for a hat.
And this is why I'm a bit sad. I love the feeling of this hat, I'm just not a big fan of the colors on me. Maybe I can dye it to make it less bright. But on the other hand, it is quite fun, and I'm not sure I want to get rid of those colors. The yarn was pretty expensive, so I don't want to destroy it. I used the same yarn as the contrast color in my Ooey Gooey sweater by Andrea Mowry, and there it looks amazing. So probably I will just unravel the hat and make something that I will wear much more.
The pattern: there is no pattern. I made a swatch, checked my gauge, and calculated how many stitches I need for my head. Then a long tube of 1-by-1 ribbing, long enough to fold a brim, and the decreases for the crown. Nothing special.
DRK Everyday Cowl by Andrea Mowry
I almost never use the yarn that a pattern suggests. For the DRK Everyday Cowl I held two yarns together:
- Multi Popcorn from Dale Garn. It has these fun multicolored bubbles that give a lot of life to the cowl. There is a reason why this yarn is called popcorn!
- A merino yarn from my stash, without a label. I don't remember the producer. Maybe it is a merino mix with a little bit of nylon, because it doesn't feel like 100% wool.
Together they gave a really, really nice fabric.
About the pattern: you knit it flat. You cast on in one of the corners and increase for a while, then you decrease again, and you finish with the edge. It is garter stitch with a fun slip stitch detail, so it is a no-purling cowl. You end up with a shape that is close to a triangle, and then you sew the sides together to create the cowl.
I like making this pattern, and I like how the cowl looks. But I can't say that I wear it too much, because it is a little bit too wide for me. I followed the pattern, so it is the size it is expected to be. But my neck stays quite open. It looks nice, but I live in Norway, and it is windy here. When it is windy, you want your neck properly covered.
So I wear it when it is not too cold, or over a buff, for a nicer look or to cover my nose. For the colder weather I have proper shawls that I can wrap around, so no wind sneaks in.
How I would fix it: unravel it to some point, stop the increases earlier, and start the decreases from there. That would give me a narrower cowl. But I just don't feel like reknitting it.
Nordland Water Bottle Cover
The last finished object of 2025, and also my own pattern: the Nordland Water Bottle Cover.
The idea came to me when we were traveling in Northern Norway, above the polar circle. On one of the days I was sitting on a windy, cold beach on one of the islands, with my metal water bottle. A metal bottle is nice to use, but it gets cold. I grabbed it to take a sip, and it was so cold! And I thought: I wonder if I can make a sweater for a bottle. More pleasant to hold, and it looks cute.
Yarn: Finull from Rauma.
The pattern: it has bubbles, a little bit of lace, and seed stitch. All together it looks very cute. At least I like it! You cast on at the bottom, make a little bit of ribbing, and then follow the chart or the written instructions (I made both). Then ribbing again, bind off, and you have a nice little cover for your bottle.
I made two: one for a larger bottle, and a smaller one that just uses fewer stitches. In the pattern I also explain what to do if your bottle is wider than those two sizes. And you can knit the cover as tall as you want.
What about you?
All the rest that I made in 2025 are sweaters, and you can find them in the sweaters episode.
What made you the most happy about the projects that you finished in 2025? And what are your plans for 2026? Drop a comment! I definitely have a lot of knitting on my bucket list.
