I’ve been eyeing up Petite Knit‘s December Bow pattern for a long time now, mainly because I’m desperately trying to get myself into a hair bow era (long, not-at-all-interesting story). However, this pattern makes a large bow, and my hair is super fine, so I’m easily swamped by hair accessories. I wonder, if I made the bow in fingering weight yarn, would it be more proportional for me? Perhaps, but that’s a problem for another day.

My desire to knit a December Bow persisted, and it happen to spring to mind while I was doing my annual binge-watching of Hallmark Christmas films (I start in late August and try to cram in as many as possible before I start rewatching the proper Christmas films in December). Sometimes (okay, most of the time), the decorations in those films are excessive (dare I say tacky?), but there’s something very joyful about the completely over-the-top, festive feel. There’s always massive trees, perfect garlands and huge bows! It was the latter that made me realise that I could just make December Bows to use as Christmas decorations and create my very own Hallmark heaven! This is ironic, because while I was set on a December Hair Bow, the actual pattern is for a hanging ornament, but we’ll just gloss over that one.

I imagined a garland, studded with big, red, knitted bows (I feel like the handmade, knitted element takes these bows from gaudy to alpine chic, but maybe that’s just wishful thinking). I figured if I got some green wire I could loop it through the middle band of the bows and attach them directly to the garland, to bring me joy all throughout December.

Anyway, that’s the long and rambling story of why I ended up making these December Bows (of which there are 5 in total). As always with my ‘Making a…’ Series, here are the details of the yarn/needles and the adaptations I made…

Table of Contents

• The Pattern
• The Yarn
  • Cascade 220 Superwash: Mini Review
• Adaptations
• Attaching the Bows to the Garland
• Final Thoughts

The Pattern

The December Bow is a knitting pattern by the popular designer Petite Knit. It is worked back and forth in garter stitch, with an i-cord edge, using simple increases/decreases for the shaping at the ends, before being gathered into a bow shape (for which there are detailed instructions included in the pattern). A double knitted band is made separately, on smaller needles, then wrapped around the middle of the bow. The ends of the band are then grafted together at the back, for a seamless look.

As I mentioned, the pattern is designed to make a hanging ornament, so it also includes instructions for attaching a leather handle to the bow. I opted to skip this step.

The Yarn

I decided to use Cascade 220 Superwash yarn, in the shade Ruby (893) for my bows. This is listed on Wool Warehouse (my go-to yarn source) as a DK weight yarn, but I think it is much more of a worsted weight (on their website, Cascade list it as a light worsted/DK weight, but I still think this is a bit off— on Ravelry, it’s listed as worsted and that definitely feels like the most accurate description to me). Needless to say, my bows probably turned out slightly bigger than they should have, but I’m not too mad about that, seeing as I’m only using them for decoration.

I chose a superwash yarn because I wanted the feel and general fanciness of a natural fibre, but I was also very aware that the bows were likely to get a bit dusty over the course of the festive season, so I wanted to be able to wash them easily, if needed.

I picked this particular superwash yarn because I just loved the colour— it was exactly the rich, festive red I was looking for! I did not, however, quite register the price of the yarn when I first bought it, which was a shame, because I wanted all of my bows to match. Each 100g ball costs £8.99 (at time of writing) and makes a grand total of 2 December Bows, so I ended up buying 3 balls in total (which is a ridiculous amount of money to spend on bows but, hey, what can you do?). If I were to go back in time, I’d probably look for a slightly cheaper alternative, but we live and learn.

Cascade 220 Superwash: Mini Review

I liked this yarn! As I mentioned, it’s definitely a worsted weight yarn (not a DK, or even a light worsted, at that, I don’t think), so that’s something to bear in mind, but I really enjoyed using it. The colour was rich and even, which was perfect for this project. It’s not the softest, but it’s also not not soft— it definitely has the feel I would expect from a superwash, wool yarn. I have read that it gets softer after washing, but I haven’t tried that yet. I’ve also seen a couple of reviews saying people had trouble with the dye coming off on their fingers, but I didn’t have that problem with this particular shade. The price isn’t too bad, especially for a 100% wool yarn, but I do think it was a bit too pricey for this particular project here.

I liked it, but I didn’t quite fall in love with it. It’s nice, and it worked well for this project, but it didn’t feel like anything particularly special. I’d use it again, but I’d also be interested in trying other, similar products.

Adaptations

On the whole, I didn’t make too many adjustments to these bows. I used the same needles listed in the pattern with my (ever so slightly thicker) yarn, and worked the main bow section to the stated length (50cm). When I wove in the ends on the main bow section, I used them to neaten up the points a little, then wove them into the i-cord edging for a seamless look.

I did, however, make a few little changes…

• I made the double knitted band a bit longer

The pattern calls for knitting the central band until it is 5cm long. I did this the first time and found that it was a bit too much of a stretch to get it around the middle of the bow, which left me with a slightly weird, pulled-looking bow. I wasn’t happy with it at all, so, next time around, I knitted the central band until it was 6cm long— it was SO much better! It was still a slight stretch to get it round, which kept things nice and neat, but it didn’t stay stretched once I had grafted the ends together, which made for the perfect bow shape. I definitely ran into this problem because of my slightly thicker yarn, so it’s definitely a me-problem, not a pattern-problem, but it’s good to know how to adapt the pattern for heavier weight yarns!

• I ran the first line of stitching lower down on the bow

When you’re gathering up the bows, the pattern instructs you to run a horizontal line of stitching across the main piece, 15cm up from the tips of the work. I found this made my bow a little bottom-heavy (i.e. the bow loops were a bit small, proportionally), so I actually ran this stitch line across at 13cm up from the tips instead. I found this gave me a much more even-looking bow.

• I used one extra piece of yarn to sew the whole bow together

In the pattern, you’re instructed to sew the horizontal line then tie off and cut the yarn. You then work a vertical line and, again, tie off and cut the yarn. I despise sewing in ends, so I just cut one long length and used that for the whole lot. I still tied it off tightly after each step, but I didn’t cut it until the very end.

• I added a few more stitches to help shape the bow

Sometimes, the gathered bow looked a little funny, so I took to adding a few more stitches (again, using that same yarn from above) here and there to even out the gathers and the shapes. This didn’t take long and wasn’t tricky to do at all, but I think it makes a huge difference.

Attaching the Bows to the Garland

To make my bow garland dreams come true, I had to find a way to attach them to the garland.

This was actually really easy to do— I just used a 10-15cm piece of green florist wire and threaded it through the back of each bow, right under the central band.

I then positioned the bow onto the garland and twisted the wire around the nearest branch to secure it in place. This means that the bows are easy to move around, if they’re not quite in the right spot, and to remove at the end of the season, ready to be packed away!

I used this prelit garland from John Lewis. It’s nice and worked well, plus it has different light options (you can choose between warm white and multicoloured lights, along with a variety of flashing/fading options), but I do feel it could do with a few more lights on it— it’s a little sparsely lit!

I also found these cute little felt stars in Sainsbury’s (and they were on offer!), which I hung on the garland, in between the bows, to add a bit more colour and interest.

Final Thoughts

Overall, I’m super happy with how these December Bows turned out! It took a little bit of trial and error at first to get them looking perfect, especially with my slightly different yarn weight, but I’m really happy with the process now— I feel like I can just whip one of these up whenever I need! After the first couple of bows, I got super quick at them, so they’re actually a pretty speedy knit for me, now that I know what I’m doing.

At first, I pretended I didn’t know how to graft stitches and opted to just (slightly shoddily) sew up the central band at the back, but I was just being lazy— I started grafting a few bows in and it really does make the bows look so much neater and more professional.

I also could not be happier with how my finished garland turned out! It looks just like I dreamed it would and, strangely enough, I think the impulse-bought white stars just bring the whole thing together!

I’ve loved making these bows and I think they’ll be a staple festive decoration for many years to come. Have you ever made a December Bow? I know it’s a popular pattern, so I’d love to hear about it if you have!

If you're interested...

You can buy the December Bow pattern, direct from Petite Knit here.

You can buy the December Bow pattern on Ravelry here.

You can find my December Bows project page on Ravelry here.

Gemma

xxx