Stop, Drop, and Knit a Holiday Banner

My fascination for Rüdiger Schlömer’s knittable typeface, Knit Hello, continues.

In fact, he’s egging me on.

While I was still all aglow from my successful handknit placecard adventure at Thanksgiving, and just starting to think of the possibilities for Christmas, Hanukkah, and New Year, Rüdiger went and published this twinkly little thing:

It’s called Knit Hello Season’s Greetings.

This wee pattern charts out Merry Xmas and Happy 2026, ready-to-knit for all your tree garland, package labeling, and general handknit holiday decor needs.

If you want to make up your own banner messages, I recommend downloading the Knit Hello Specimanual, a 32-page booklet that is available in print or ebook here. External Link. Opens in new window.. (Tip: To get the ebook, choose any country from the drop-down menu, Switzerland is not currently shipping to the US, but it doesn’t matter for the ebook.)

From the Specimanual, you can knit all the letters, numbers, symbols, and accent marks—it’s a proper font so you can knit the dictionary if you want. The Specimanual also has detailed instructions on how to make the incredibly tidy edging, so that’s my pick!

Letter math: at 3-5 minutes per letter or number (my rate of knitting while watching Unforgotten or The American Revolution or sitting in a team Zoom listening to chit chat and gibble gabble), each of these banners will take 27-35 minutes. No kidding—these are fast, even if you’re slow. Quick gift mode: activated!

The garland that is dancing in my head right now involves the phrase A Merry Little Klatchmas, for a Providence pal party coming up later this month. The klatch in question has always been very pro-knitting, and I’m tickled to think that the garland will come out every year for their annual celebration of the season.

My first banner word demonstrates the importance of contrast.

I’m going to knit the words separately and use i-cord to string them together with candy canes and such, in folkloric fashion. The official klatch vibe is kitsch, so I do not rule out jingle bells, trees, and/or gingerbread people. Note to Ann: batten down your gnomes when I come to town—they are perfect garland garnishes.

Niece dog Georgie thinks beloved names are festive enough by themselves.

If time runs short, I can knit the letters but pick up the other bits at Paper Source or Michaels. As Ina Garten says, store bought is fine!

It’s Party time—Join us in Nashville!

I’m heading to Nashville on December 14 for the MDK Holiday Party at Atlas, and you can bet your reindeer I’ll be knitting festive words and phrases while I’m there. We’ll have a table set up for Knit Hello fun and stocked with yarn, just bring needles that will work with DK or worsted-weight yarns. (Bonus: this is an excellent chance to get to know Jane and Atlas, because those are the yarns we’ll be using.)

Here are the details:

Plus: There’s a Zoom Party!

Can’t make it in person on the 14th? We got you! MDK’s virtual events coordinator Ashe Cain will be on hand and on Zoom, so you can join us virtually from 2-3:30 Eastern time.

This will be a jolly knit-together, not a formal class or presentation.

This Zoom will not be recorded—we will be in breakout rooms for some of the time, the better to chat and help each other. Old-school real-time fun!

What do you need to do to join in via Zoom?

—RSVP using this form, and we’ll email you a reminder with the Zoom link a couple of days before the event.

If you want to knit letters with us (optional):

Download Knit Hello Seasons Greetings OR the Knit Hello Specimanual so you’ll have the letters in front of you; and

—Gather up small amounts of DK or worsted-weight yarns and needles appropriate for the yarn. Things to think about: what colors you like and whether you want a consistent background color, in which case you will want to have more of that color. Don’t think about it too much—this is just for the fun of learning a thing that is easy to learn, and to hang out with each other.

The Zoom is free and open to all and we have a not-hidden agenda: to show you how fun our MDK Society Zooms and hangouts are, in hopes of getting you to join the MDK Society!

Hope to see you on December 14—in person or on Zoom.