Handmaid

I have loved Margaret Atwood’s classic book The Handmaid’s Tale for years now and then when the series came out, I fell for that too. I should have made one of these a while ago, but ah, procrastination. Then when some short sighted jackasses overturned Roe v. Wade I have been looking for more and more ways to channel my anger and frustration… I give you my take on a handmaid. As always, make and do with them as you would like, but do NOT claim my pattern as your own in any way please and if someone asks, point them to the pattern. Under his eye. 

This was made on my Addi 22 with worsted weight yarn.


Body: 15 rounds in the skin color, 70 rounds in red (turn to row 85), then 15 more rounds in the skin color (to row 100), leave a long tail to sew with.

Bottom: 20 rounds in red, leaving a long tail to sew closed and to sew onto the body.

Arms: start with a bit of a tail to sew this hand together, 5 rounds in skin color, 32 rounds in red (to row 37), leave a long tail here and poke it through to the right side when you are done to use to sew to the body, 5 rounds in skin color (to row 42), leaving a tail to sew the hands together.

Wings: 40 rounds in white, leaving a long tail to sew close and into place


Assembly: Take the bottom piece and cinch both ends together. Flatten it out to a circle (think scrubby here) and stitch it together to keep it flat. Don’t weave in  your end as you use this to sew to the body. 

Turn body in on itself, lining the skin color up and cinch the top closed. Stuff the head then cinch the neck closed. Stuff the body mostly. Sew the bottom piece around the bottom of the dress, the stitches should line up pretty well here, making sure to finish stuffing before you finish sewing closed. 

Roll only the hands in circle shapes and sew closed and then together. Do NOT sew the red part in a tube. This part you leave flat. 

Put the arms in place on the body, sliding it over the head and sew onto the body. 

Turn the wings in on itself, cinch the ends together and sew in place, shaping as you go. 


And now you have a quick and easy Handmaid. Blessed be the fruit. 

Mad Hooking! 

13 comments on “Handmaid

  1. Thank you for the pattern, I love it, and the show. When you say “turn the wings in on itself” are you meaning the hat?

    • yes, sorry, in the books and show I heard it say wings and it kinda stuck in my head. So, yes, it’s her white hat.

  2. Love it! This deserves to be my first
    project on my new Addi. I am wondering if by chance you you have any videos to show how to properly load and knit this on the Addi?

    Also what are the finished measurements of our handmaids?

    Thanks so much!

  3. Hi. Second message on this.

    I love this pattern ~ so clever! About how tall is the finished handmaid? Did you use the larger Addi express or the smaller 22 stitch machine?

    This will be my first Addi project. Do you happen to have any videos you can share?

    Thanks for you guidance!

    • She’s 12 or so inches? I should have measured and didn’t honestly. I was just in a manic to get them out. I used the 22 pin, but it in theory would translate to the larger machine. Alas, I do not do videos. We have talked about it, but this is my hobby and I haven’t went down the video making rabbit hole yet.

  4. Please could you translate this pattern for those of us who are not “bilingual” – those who only hand-knit and do no machine knitting? (I am not even sure that this would be possible.)
    In any case, you have produced a great end result.

    • It is possible in theory, but I haven’t done it. The machine is 22 pin, so 22 stitches around. You wouldn’t need to do as many rounds as I did because I wanted to double it up. If you used needles to correspond to the yarn it would only have to be a single layer. It should be fairly easy, but honestly I haven’t done knit toys really to know.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *