papa bear knits and designs has been percolating this cabled heart motif for a pattern since, well, forever. it always was “right there” waiting for the perfect reason to design a punny named pattern and in late in 2023, after following seismic yarn and dyeworks out of daly city/san francisco, ca, papa reached out to the owner of the indie dyer, eva, to inquire about a set of mini skeins which would be amazing with future designs. that contact led to a discussion about a 2024 collaboration (more on this soon!) as she had also been following papa bear on instagram and had queued a few designs for the hubs! mutual love society!!!

the result of those discussions is the pattern you are holding in your hands, knotty boys need love too. working into the pouch front an odd number of hearts, odd is better than even to me from a visual
perspective, the initial prototype hit pretty much on the mark. from there, a few minor adjustments to repeats and papa was off and running! designed as part of the collaboration is the use of seismic yarns and dyeworks butter sock or luxe fingering weight yarn in the beautiful red colorway, LUST.

this pattern presents an interesting, engaging cable design. it is a design I would encourage for a knitter more comfortable with cables as there are several variations using both knit and purl stitches to create the sweet little hearts for
those “knotty” boys. knotty boys need love too is based on the tried and true design of the previous patterns from papa bear knits
and designs. model knits were done in the butter sock base from seismic yarn and dyeworks and uses approximately 90-100 yards of yarn. this base is ideal to show off the beauty of the cabled heart and once you get into the cables, reading your knitting makes it easy to determine how your piece is coming together.

profits from the sale of the knotty boys need love too jockstrap and thong pattern sales will be donated to the hearts4henry foundation. this foundation is near and dear to my heart, it is named in honor of my godson, henry milo, and contributions are donated to families of children with heart defects. for more info please see the website, hearts4henry.org.

sizes are from 28” to 38” waist and include detailed instructions on how to construct the thong to the elastic waistband.

materials needed
1 yard (or more if waist size is greater than 36”) of 1” elastic
1/2 yard of 1/8” elastic
cable needle
US1.5 circular needle
90-100 yards of seismic yarn and dyeworks butter sock fingering in the colorway LUST
standard notions such as tapestry needle and scissors