Four Cute Halloween Plant Sweaters You Can Knit

A row of tiny succulent plants wrapped in spooky Halloween themed knits. From left to right: gravestone, cat, monster, jack-o-lantern.

I love tiny, cute projects that use up my scraps! So as we all deck our halls for the holidays, why not knit your plants some tiny, festive sweaters? Why not start with Halloween? These spooky Halloween plant sweaters (Yes, I think I made up the term “plant sweaters”) are my new seasonal entry table decoration! Bring on the trick-or-treaters!

I wasted a whole afternoon making Halloween sweaters for my tiny, fake IKEA plants and now you can too!

Four Halloween-themed plant decorations arranged around a candle. From left to right: cat, headstone, jack-o-lantern, monster. — Here is how I actually display these on our entry-way table in the fall! Not in the frame, but I also keep a stack of books next to it, hoping someone will borrow my favorites and love them as much as I do.

Side note: just looking for the colorwork charts? See here for the headstone, cat, monster and jack-o-lantern!

You may recognize many of the colors/yarns from my other scrappy patterns, the Farm Animal Finger Puppets and the Jungle Animal Finger Puppets! Don’t worry, the scraps can be slightly different yarn weights and the pattern will still work. Your plants won’t mind if their sweaters aren’t perfect.

Materials:

Links to the plants I have or the sizes that will work (2 1/4 inch) are below. You also need these materials:

Scrap yarn in DK weight (most of mine is CotLin from Knit Picks) in these colors:
- Jack-O-Lantern: orange and black
- Cat: orange and black
- Frankenstein: green, white, black and yellow
- Grave: green, gray and black
US Size 3 knitting needles
Yarn needle

My Tiny IKEA Plants

Other Colorful Plants

More Artificial “Herbs”

Construction Notes

Full instructions are included below. This section just has some notes to help you read the pattern!

Cast on in main color, work the chart in the colors shown in chart.
I write “k chart” to note that you work a knitted row of the chart. “p chart” means you work a purl row of the chart.

Gauge: 7 stitches = 1 inch, 9 rows = 1 inch

If you are making a sweater for a similar plant but the pot is not tapered, you can cast on 45 stitches to start, don’t work the increases, work 14 stitches on each side of the chart in each round (every chart is 17 stitches wide). Conceptually, you will just cast on all the stitches that will go around the top of the pot at the bottom of the pot, then neither increase nor decrease!

Tip: when you work these kinds of “patches” in colorwork, you need to float the contrast color (for example, black on the cat pattern) a stitch or two before and after the design, to avoid gaps, or use intarsia methods. It’s up to you! I’m more comfortable just playing with floats to prevent gaps.

Colorwork Charts

Halloween colorwork knitting chart for a small jack-o-lantern. The pattern is 17 stitches wide and 18 rows long and the colors used are orange and black. — Jack-O-Lantern Colorwork Chart

Halloween colorwork knitting chart for a small monster or Frankenstein. The pattern is 17 stitches wide and 18 rows long and the colors used are green with black, yellow and white details. — Monster (Frankenstein) Colorwork Chart

Halloween colorwork knitting chart for a small spooky black cat on an orange background. The pattern is 17 stitches wide and 18 rows long and the colors used are orange and black. — Cat Colorwork Chart

Halloween colorwork knitting chart for a small headstone or gravestone that reads "RIP". The pattern is 17 stitches wide and 18 rows long and the colors used are green background, grey headstone, with RIP written in black. — Grave Colorwork Chart

Instructions (All Halloween Plant Sweaters):

Stitch Definitions:

k1fb: knit 1 front and back (increases by 1)

k: knit

p: purl

Cast on 35 stitches in main color
Row 1: k9, k chart, k9
Row 2: k1, p8, p chart, p8, k1
Row 3: k9, k chart, k9
Row 4: k1, p8, p chart, p8, k1
Row 5: k1,k1fb, k7, k chart, k7, k1fb, k1
Row 6: k1, p9, p chart, p9, k1
Row 7: k1, k1fb, k8, k chart, k8, k1fb, k1
Row 8: k1, p10, p chart, p10, k1
Row 9: k1, k1fb, k9, k chart, k9, k1fb, k1
Row 10: k1, p11, p chart, p11, k1
Row 11: k12, k chart, k12
Row 12: k1, p11, p chart, p11, k1
Row 13: k1, k1fb, k10, k chart, k10, k1fb, k1
Row 14: k1, p12, p chart, p12, k1
Row 15: k13, k chart, k13
Row 16: k1, p12, p chart, p12, k1
Row 17: k1, k1fb, k12, k chart, k12, k1fb, k1
Row 18: k1, p13, p chart, p13, k1

Bind off all stitches

Image illustrating a finished, but unassembled plant sweater featuring the cat knitting chart. — A plant sweater hot off the needles!

Weave in/hide ends. Sew the two sides of the sweater together using a piece of yarn in the main color. See image below for where to sew (but don’t really sew in blue!) I used mattress stitch, but that’s probably too much attention to detail for a plant sweater!

The image shows how to sew up the back of a plant sweater using the mattress stitch, including an illustration of where to place the needle. — Where to sew up your plant sweater.

And that’s it! Tiny, handmade Halloween plant sweaters you didn’t know you needed. Stay tuned for what my plants are wearing for Christmas!

P.S. This is my second knitting pattern, so check out my first, these Easy Knit Textured Pumpkins. I guess I have a bit of a fall theme!

Spooky, Halloween-themed plants wearing tiny sweaters with knitted colorwork. The plants are tiny succulents. The knitted colorwork features a gravestone, a cat, a monster or Frankenstein, and a Jack-o-Lantern or Pumpkin. The sweaters are pictured arranged on a shelf and on an entry-way piece with a coordinating green candle. The title reads "Spooky Plant Sweaters".

Four Cute Halloween Plant Sweaters You Can Knit