Foxy

December 2014

One of the ladies in my knitting group whipped up a couple of these cute hats for Christmas presents, and I couldn't resist following suit, they were so adorable.

I’d originally intended to make this using orange teddy bear eyes rather than buttons for the eyes, but I decided against, since they were on spikes, and so felt like they would make it a bit uncomfortable to wear.

Photographed in Hagg Woods, Dunnington. It’s amazing how cooperative a 3 year old can be when there are chocolate biscuits at stake.

I shortened the ribbing around the brim by about 0.25”. I made the smallest size, but with felted tweed (a dk) held double on 3.25mms. The main rationale being that I wanted to make it with something I already had stashed, and that was the only orange yarn I had.

I’m happy with how the sizing turned out. Here’s it’s modelled by a 3 year old boy. The intended recipient is a 4 year old girl. I think it will be fine.

George does look cute in it, though, and I do have some grey Cascade 220 stashed, so I expect I’ll be casting on a woolfie at some point, as this was a really fun pattern to follow, with shadow wraps, intarsia in the round and all sorts of interesting features.

This is a Christmas present for Emily. Since her brother is getting a sweater I also made her a matching toy fox in felted tweed to even things out a bit. The fox is here.

Pattern: Foxy by Ekaterina Blanchard
Size: Toddler
Yarn: Rowan Felted Tweed dk
Colours: 154 Ginger and 177 Clay
Needle 3.25mm
On ravelry: here

Frost on Leaves

October 2013

Hats are so difficult to photograph!

Test knit for Midori Hirose via the Testing Pool group, which was a great excuse to make something for myself and yet feel like I wasn't being entirely selfish at the same time. I often seem to miss out on any patterns up for testing which appeal to me, so I was very pleased to be able to have a go at this one.

Beautiful pattern, and great fun to knit. This is made using two colour brioche stitch. I hadn't tried brioche stitch before, but you soon get the hang of it. It's not a difficult pattern, it just takes a little while to work out what's going on.

I spent ages trying to decide which two of the 6 shades of felted tweed in my stash to use. These seemed most in fitting with the idea of frost on leaves though.

If I make this again, I might think about going down a needle size, as my brioche was quite loose, and the cap would also look great a little bit smaller. I think I'll still get a lot of wear out of this version, though! I just need to figure out how to make myself some matching mittens. Maybe I could adapt these...

I'm keeping the link from the original testing thread here because it had a couple of useful links and tips regarding some of the techniques used in this pattern.

Pattern: Frost on Leaves by Midori Hirose / Cake Knit Midori
Yarn: Rowan Felted Tweed dk
Colour: 165 Scree (Pale Blue) and 133 Midnight (Dark Blue)
Amount: Less than one skein of each
On ravelry: here

Monkey Hat

April 2013

I have been meaning to make something like this since the Twist Collective published pattern for a blanket with the same monkey motif on it about 4 years ago. The blanket version looked a bit on the small side to me, and required knowledge of steeking which I don't have (yet, but soon...) and so it made more sense all round to have a go at the hat instead.

This version was made on 2.25mm DPNs, giving me a gauge of roughly 27 stitches to every 4 inches after blocking. The brim measures about 19 inches around, which fits my almost-18-month-old toddler fairly loosely. I would guess it would last him until he was 2 at least.

But it's not for him. It's for the son of a friend of mine who has made a habit of buying yarn based souveniers for me when he goes travelling, and his generosity is staggering. I hope this doesn't sound like bragging, but last trip I got 4 skeins of Berroco Vintage, 2 skeins of Dream in Color Smooshy, 3 skeins of Madeleine Tosh Sock and 2 skeins of Cascade 220. Don't ask me how he got that through customs.

I would like to make this again at some point, probably in a larger size. To get it much smaller I'd end up having to use 1.00mm needles or something, and I don't fancy that much. The thin ones are too liable to snapping if you're a bit of a klutz like me.

I made a few mistakes with this - my decreases are all leaning the wrong way, the monkey with its tongue out should have his eyes shut - that sort of thing. The finished object is pretty enough that it doesn't need to be perfect, in my humble opinion...

Pattern: Monkey Hat by Mary Ann Stephens
Yarn: Cygnet Truly Wool Rich 4-ply (brown), Cygnet Truly Wool Rich 4-ply (green), King Cole Zig Zag (red), Patons UK Fairytale Dreamtime 4-ply (cream), Rowan Pure Wool 4-ply (yellow)
Amount: Less than one skien of each
Size: 18 - 24 months
On ravelry: here