Things That Bring Me Joy – Yards of Happiness

Thankful

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving here in the United States and before you know it Christmas will be here and then the new year! My posting here as been erratic just because my life has been filled to the brim with new and exciting routines and tasks. I’m thankful for where I am right now.
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I’m also thankful for dogs who enhance my knitting process. Cher will always find a ball of yarn to nap on and Jellybean…

Let’s just say this year I’ve learned how to hold a chihuahua who wants hugs and snuggles while knitting. It’s a skill.

I also realized how thankful I am for my two hands this year. They allow me to make things that bring comfort, joy and happiness to the people I love. And they let me type this blog to you! I’m just insanely happy and full of gratitude today and every day. So if you celebrate Thanksgiving I hope it is filled with the love of family and friends! And if you don’t, hopefully your Thursday is filled with yarn. I’ve got some fun things I’m finishing up so more posts next week! Happy Thanksgiving!

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.
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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.
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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.
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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!

November 16, 2018 by IamDWJ Categories: Brioche, Color, FO: Finished Object, green, Hats, Knitting, Madelinetosh, multi, neutral (black/grey/white), pink, rainbows, Techniques/Stitches, Tempting Ewe, The Lemonade Shop, Things That Bring Me Joy, YarnTags: #yardsofhappiness, brioche knitting, knit hat, Knitting, rainbows, Yarn 12 Comments

FO: A Trio of Rainbow Tecumsehs

This might be the happiest trio of knits I’ve made to date. I love a good rainbow and I love my dogs so when I combined dogs, rainbows and hand knits I knew it would be a great combo. I’m happy to say I completed my trio of Tecumseh sweaters and couldn’t be happier. And let me say that taking pictures of dogs is sooooo hard. LOL
Rainbow Tecumsehs
First up, let’s talk about my Rainbow Tecumseh sweater. After knitting my cotton version I knew I wanted the body of my next Tecumseh sweater to be longer. I also thought it would be fun to make the pattern into a rainbow. I ended up settling with the body in a lovely navy blue Miss Babs Yowza in McHales. If you haven’t used Yowza you really should give it a try, I love how soft it is and that you can machine wash it. I was able to knit all the way to the end of the dark purple colorwork before my skein of Yowza ended. I love gigantic skeins of yarn. And for the rainbow I used the following colors:

Red: Berroco Vintage DK Sour Cherry
Orange: Berroco Vintage DK Orange
Yellow: Berroco Vintage DK Banane
Green: Berroco Vintage DK Holly
Blue: Berroco Vintage DK Blue Note
Indigo/Purple: Simplicity by Hikoo in Red Hat Purple
Violet: Berroco Vintage DK Aster
White: Berroco Vintage DK Snow Day

Rainbow Tecumsehs I was unsure how I was going to keep the rainbow going to extend it but I swapped out the lavender I was originally going to use for a deeper purple in my stash and then went with lavender and white for the final colors. I couldn’t be happier. I also knit this sweater in a medium this time around, which is closer to my natural bust size so I wouldn’t have a sweater with a ton of ease. And for the dog versions I broke the rainbows in half. You saw the details on Jellybean’s Tecumseh last week.
Rainbow Tecumsehs
For Cher’s I decided to go with red for the main color of her sweater, I was going to do the pale yellow but wanted a bolder pop for her sweater. She wasn’t super interested in taking photos even after giving her treats so that’s why you see her resting her head on my arms. My sweet girl is 14 years old and likes things her way and I don’t like to fuss with her too much. With age, she’s earned that right.
Rainbow Tecumsehs
But to my surprise I turned around and she was sitting nicely with Jellybean posing in her sweater so I got to snap a few pics. I love these little dogs so much.

And Jellybean, well she’s always down for photos and snuggles. I sent my husband these pics and he said this should just be our Christmas card without him! LOL But I’m working on something for him for winter that will probably be what he wears for our holiday pics. I couldn’t be more tickled by these sweaters and I love seeing what color combos everyone else is coming up with in our Raverly group too! Come and join in on the Tecumseh fun!