Techniques/Stitches – Yards of Happiness

FO: Liebelle Hat

As my hair has been growing, I’ve been growing it more in an upwards direction…which means hats to fit my hair are getting tricky! I hadn’t really thought about my hair and how my hats might fit or not fit until I started to put some on and thought ‘well that looks horrible,’ so I was a little nervous as I was finishing my Liebelle Hat I cast on last month. This has been a good commuter project while I ride the subway and I wasn’t in any rush but I finished it just in time for some November snow we had and hoping it didn’t look silly when I finally put it on.
Untitled
And it fits (also I’m wearing my Pink Professor cardigan, I just took out the collar bind off and made a stretchier bind off for a better fit). Fortunately, the hat has enough height before you start shaping the crown and it accommodates my growing mane.

And here’s my hair contained and then unleashed. LOL I love it being a bit wild.
Untitled
I picked this pattern because I’ve knit another by Katrin Schubert and I like her brioche designs. I also know that I do not do gauge swatches for hats (always for sweaters, but never for hats) and after knitting one of her hats before I decided I needed to go down a needle size to a size 3. I also picked this because I could combine a bunch of fun colors and do some striping in the hat. I had a teeny tiny scrap of the sparkly magenta Tempting Ewe yarn from my sister’s sweater I made a while ago. And the light grey is leftover cosmic silver dk from my Dotted Rays shawl (I wear that thing all the time because it’s so big and squishy and warm) and then I pulled out of my stash some limited edition color, Catskills, from the Lemonade Shop yarns. It’s a deep almost olive green with little flecks of rainbow.
Untitled
Brioche always keeps me engaged and the end results always make me happy. And because it’s essentially double knit it’s such a warm hat. I was perfectly toasty walking the dogs in the snow. Couldn’t ask for more!

FO: A Teeny Tiny Tecumseh

I’ve been super busy and finished up my Mom’s birthday knit and a really awesome test knit I’ll get to share this week. So I’m back on my Tecumseh knitting mojo. And so this weekend I decided since I had so little left to go I needed to finish Jellybean’s Teeny Tiny Tecumseh sweater.
Untitled
Beanie was NOT interested in letting me take real pictures this weekend so these are as good as they will get. LOL Since knitting a sweater for a 6lb chihuahua doesn’t leave me a ton of surface area you may notice I had to alter the leaf pattern a bit from the standard Tecumseh chart. You still get the general idea of what it looks like.
Untitled
I was also proud of myself because I used short rows this time to shape the shorter front and make the back a bit longer and curve around her body!

I think that’s probably what I’m most proud of with this one. I used the same colors of the rainbow that are in my sweater and decided to make her body in the lavender color I was originally going to use for my purple but swapped out for a darker shade. And since I can only fit four colors on a dog sweater, Cher’s version will start with blue and go into red and the main body will be light blue.
Untitled
For the most part my knitting bores her. Clearly. But it was so chilly this weekend that I felt extra motivated to get her in this. We even went for a little car ride and she was nice and cozy in her sweater (Cher is fine with just a t-shirt layer on right now, but once it gets in the 30s we put sweaters on her too).
Untitled
And even though my husband calls her a tiny grandma in her hand knits I think she’s cozy and cute as pie. Totally worth the time and effort. And I’m knocking out the sleeves on my version so I can finish up my trio of Tecumsehs!

October 15, 2018October 14, 2018 by IamDWJ Categories: Berroco, Color, FO: Finished Object, For Dogs, green, Jellybean, Knitting, My Dogs, orange, purple, rainbows, red, Stranded/Colorwork, Techniques/Stitches, Things That Bring Me Joy, Yarn, yellowTags: #TecumsehwithDWJ, #yardsofhappiness, Dogs in sweaters, Jellybean the dog, knits for dogs, Knitting, Tecumseh sweater, Yarn 12 Comments

FO: Rainbow Askews Me Shawl

I love knitting rainbows. It’s fun to do the color changes and to see how the rainbow will really evolve in the pattern you’ve chosen. They make me smile and I swear I get asked more about what I’m knitting when it’s something super colorful. So after enjoying knitting the last Askews Me Shawl I decided to knit one for myself and with a rainbow yarn.

I saw this fun Lion Brand Mandala yarn in a great rainbow and picked up two skeins. One skein alone has 590 yards so it’s perfect for this shawl, I used almost the entire skein so I got a full rainbow (and a rainbow on the floor as I was photographing it!). I decided to balance my rainbow with a neutral so I finally frogged my Flax cardigan of it’s Cascade 220 Superwash in Doeskin Heather and I think it’s a perfect balance.

This is a great fall scarf and travel wrap. It’s big and cuddly and warm and can really be wrapped around you (or you dog). Below is the right side, although with brioche knitting it’s reversible but by definition this is the right side. The light camel color is the main color but the rainbow still really pops out behind it.

But of course I love the side where the color is more dominant. I always love the wrong side of brioche. I don’t know why.

Fall starts this week and I’m ready for chilly mornings so I can wear scarves and hats. I’ve even got a lovely yellow hat I’m excited to pair with this scarf, it’ll be such a happy combination. When everyone is on the train wearing black and grey coats I’m always standing out with bright and happy color.

And I think Jellybean thinks this is probably the perfect wrap to go with her banana button down shirt. I just won’t tell her it’s for me.