The Simple Thing plus hood

If you like the look of the Sophie Scarf, then give this free pattern for The Simple Thing by Melina Brell a try.

I ended up cannibalizing the yarn and needles from my attempt to make the Slice of Goodness Wrap by Purl Soho to make this project. I really, really wanted to finish Slice of Goodness, but the process was going to be very lengthy, and even though I made it to around halfway through, I lost the will to go on.

Gauge shot

I had been aware of the Sophie Scarf design for a while, but that design by itself didn't intrigue me, mainly because I don't like short scarves. I do like i-cord edges and garter stitch, however. So when the Sophie Hood version was released, that's when I started getting interested.

So my plan is to see if I can approximate the hooded version of this scarf by using The Simple Thing as my starting point.

HeathlandKnits has a good video tutorial on YouTube that walks you through the setup process for The Simple Thing scarf, and I highly recommend that you watch that video when casting on. There is also a video showing how to graft the ends together when finishing the scarf. Both of the video links included in the PDF of the pattern appear to be broken, so that's why I'm sharing the links with you here. It took me a bit of clicking around to find them.

Part 1 done

Because I prefer my scarves on the longer side, I'm making this using a 6-row repeat instead of the basic 4-row repeat suggested in the pattern. Whatever length you prefer for your pattern repeat, definitely use a stitch marker that opens/closes as a progress keeper! This almost becomes a mindless knit with the help of a progress keeper clipped to your project. 

Part 2 starts with a buttonhole

I originally planned to have the scarf part be at least 30 to 36 inches long and around 10 inches wide on each side before starting on the hood part. The way I'm visualizing this coming together, I'll have to knit each scarf side before joining them together to knit the hood. I haven't done that sort of thing before, so we'll see if it works. 🤞

Parts 1 and 2 complete

Part 1 ended up being about 27 inches long by 9.5 inches wide at widest end, or 50 stitches (not counting i-cord stitches) by 296 rows. I started part 2 by making a buttonhole at the tip, which required it to be a bit wider than the tip of part 1, so I knitted a few rows without increasing part 2 until the width at that length was about the same as on part 1, and then I continued the same increasing pattern (every 6 rows) as on part 1 until achieving the same overall width and length.

Before grafting the i-cord edging

After joining the two sides to begin the hood (and adding stitches along the i-cords at the back of the neck for a comfortable fit), I ended up with 120 stitches on the needle, not counting the i-cord stitches on each edge of the work. This will give me a hood with enough depth to comfortably fit over my hair, which I usually wear up in a messy bun style. 

Start of part 3

There is a Sophie Hood video tutorial that shows some key techniques for that pattern, and in watching that video, it's clear that I'm using a different method to knit the hood for my project. They knit the hood flat (in line with the scarf) and have a seam to join the entirety of the sides of the hood at the back; I'm also knitting my hood flat, but I'm doing mine seamlessly (bottom up) except for where the top edge will be grafted. 

Rescue line added before starting hood decreases

I debated for a while how to work the top of the hood, meaning whether I would attempt to make the back part slightly shaped/rounded with short rows or decreases. Finally, I found this video tutorial by Yuha Knitting that shows an easy-to-understand method for making decreases to help make the back of a hood knitted like mine a bit rounded, so it looks less pointy on the wearer's head. I think I'll try doing mine that way. (I could also envision a method of working short rows on either side of the center of the back of the hood to shape the crown that way, but I just didn't want to work that hard, so I'm glad I found the technique by Yuha Knitting!)

Hood complete with crown decreases

To prepare for the decreases, I added a marker to show where the center of the back of the hood was, and I will make the hood decreases on either side of that marker. I also added a marker to show when I was working a right-side row, since I intended to work decreases only on the right side of the work. Lastly, I added a rescue line in the last row before starting to decrease, just in case I wasn't happy with how the decreasing section was going. It would be easy to rip back and start the section again if needed. 😂 The decrease before the marker will be a left-leaning decrease (SSK), and the decrease after the marker will be a right-leaning decrease (K2tog).

Hood complete with top seam closed

I calculated that I wanted to decrease the crown of the hood by about 40 stitches (about one-third of the hood's total width), which, decreasing 2 stitches on each right-side row, would require 40 rows to achieve. (With decreases worked only on right-side rows, every decreasing row is followed by a non-decreasing row on the wrong side, so 20 decreasing rows plus 20 non-decreasing rows equals 40 rows total.) Based on my estimated gauge, those 40 rows would add about 3.5 inches of height to the hood. And since I wanted the total height of my hood to be about 13-14 inches (measuring from the top of my shoulder to the crown of my head), that meant that I should knit about 10 inches of hood before starting the decreasing rows.

Time to add a button

I also found a nice tutorial by Lindsey of the Yarina blog hosted by Custom Yarn that shows how to join the top of a hood knitted in garter stitch like mine using a 3-needle bind-off technique that blends invisibly into the established garter stitch. Woo-hoo! I'm going to try doing that, too.

Button info

A Chicken for Suzanne

My dear friend Suzanne is a self-proclaimed "chicken gal" and suburbanite-of-necessity who longs to return to her farmgirl days living in the country with a yard full of chickens.

What better way to celebrate her upcoming birthday than sending an Emotional Support Chicken for her to hug and hold while she dreams her sweet farmgirl dreams?

The Emotional Support Chicken by Annette Corsino is just a downright fun pattern to knit, and I think it looks best when executed in tweedy-ish yarn colorways that are reminiscent of the feathers of real chickens. When I saw the lovely marled colorways of KnitPal Cotton to the Core, I just knew they would produce some lovely chickens well worth adding to any metaphorical flock. For this hen, I'm using Caramel Brown as color A and Fresh Peach as color B.

This yarn is on the lighter side for being labeled as a worsted weight - definitely much lighter than the stuff that Red Heart labels as worsted weight. In my opinion, it's closer to being DK weight. I'm still using the needle size specified in the pattern, though, so we'll see how big this hen ends up being compared to the other ones I've knitted with Red Heart. 😅 

I hope Suzanne loves her new chicken, and if she gives it a name, I will update this post to let all y'all know what it is! 💜🐔💜

I'm pretty sure that Suzanne's chicken is the first one of these that I've managed to sew together according to the way the pattern designer intended. Yay!

Emotional Support Chicken

I just couldn't resist the allure of the Emotional Support Chicken any longer. Meet Scrappy Henrietta! 😍

This pattern arrived on the knitting scene sometime in 2023 or 2024 (I believe), and the internet practically EXPLODED with excitement.

I added the pattern to my Ravelry favorites for safe-keeping but decided to wait before making one. I noticed, however, as the months went by the way the emotional support chicken consistently remained on the first page of Ravelry's "hot right now" designs, suggesting that the internet's adoration for the ESCs had yet to abate. It was on FIRE.

Eventually, I just couldn't resist the pull of the ESC any more.  

I think the thing that put me over the edge was when I discovered that The Knitting Tree LA had made a companion video for the pattern. Checking out the video was my undoing. 😂

Tail part 1

I grabbed a long old scrap of Hobby Lobby's I Love This Yarn in the Jazzy Stripe colorway (left over from an Infinite Granny Square afghan project) and cast on to follow along with the video, which starts at the tail.

Tail part 2

For part 2 of the tail and the main part of the body, I used a couple of long scraps of Red Heart With Love in the Pewter Gray colorway that were left over from when I made my Autumn Mists vest with no pattern.

Tail and main body

I don't know which yarn I used for the neck and head, but it was one long scrap of an ombre-ish yarn with purple, dark pink, and raspberry colors that is probably something by Red Heart, but I didn't have a label for it anymore.

Neck and head added

I used up the remainder of the raspberry ombre scrap for the top end of the undersection piece, and more of the gray yarn to finish the undersection.

Henrietta got a bit wonky as I was sewing her up, where the two ends of her neck stripes don't line up at the front, but hey. She is still adorable, and I wuv her!! She has 15 mm blue safety eyes from a pack that I bought off Etsy years ago from a seller named 6060, who is no longer active on the site. Whenever I'm installing safety eyes, I always use this tool to help set the backs, because it makes it a lot easier for my arthritic hands to handle the task of snapping them on securely.

You might be able to knit a whole ESC by only watching the video, but I think the video really makes a better accompaniment if you also own the written pattern, so before I reached the end of the first tail section, I bought the pattern: And the emotional support chicken claimed yet another willing (happy) victim. 😂

I followed this up by making a friend for Scrappy Henrietta, another Emotional Support Chicken, Scrappy Patty, in colors to match our guest bedroom.

Scrappy Patty and Scrappy Henrietta

 

Scrappy Patty sitting on the bed in our guest bedroom

Scrappy Patty side view

True Blue Boomerang Scarf

This is such an easy, mindless knitting pattern, and it gives you a nice, long/shallow, asymmetrical triangle in garter stitch that curves nicely around your neck as either a scarf or a shawl (depending on how big you knit it to be). It's a simple two-row repeat that's very easy to remember.

This one ended up being about 58 inches long finished length from tip to tip. I didn't have a full skein of this yarn (Red Heart Super Saver Ombre in the True Blue colorway) available, so I just knitted until what I had was about to run out and then cast off. 

You can make this with any yarn weight at any gauge, just choose a needle size based on your yarn size that gives you a fabric with a nice drape (not too stiff). To begin, cast on 5 stitches. Row 1: kfb, kfb; knit to last 2 stitches; k2tog. Row 2: knit.

That's all there is to it! Just keep repeating those two rows until your scarf or shawl is as big as you'd like. I recommend using a stretchy cast off, such as: Knit the first stitch; slip the stitch you just knit back onto the left needle; then knit two stitches together through the back loop. Repeat by slipping that stitch back to the left needle and knitting two stitches together through the back loop until all stitches are cast off.

As you can see, I have knit this type of scarf a few times before:

Honeydripper Boomerang Scarf free pattern

I’m living with a lot of stress right now, so I needed a project that could not only use up some of my yarn stash but also was relatively simple to execute without needing a lot of concentration.

I enjoyed seeing all the various shawls people created during Marly Bird’s 2019 Tournament of Stitches, so I decided to adopt the boomerang shape used for that project, but instead of incorporating the mosaic sections I decided to keep it simple by working the entire piece in a two-color garter stitch stripe.

The two yarns I used here are both vintage skeins that date back to my mother’s stash. She very likely purchased these before I was even born. Even though the colors aren’t my favorite, I think they work well together and hopefully will result in a nice-looking scarf that my daughter will enjoy wearing.

My plan was just to keep knitting until I was about to run out of yarn, then cast off. I figured the two full skeins of yarn ought to produce a nice-sized scarf when it was all finished.

Just to mix things up a bit and make the long stretches of garter stitch more interesting toward the end (as well as to add visual interest on one side of the triangle in keeping with the scarf’s Honeydripper theme), when my yarn was about 75% gone I started working occasional honeycomb lace rows. This did add an additional level of detail to the process, but it was easy enough for me to read my knitting and see when it was time to work the lace rows, so I didn’t think this would be too much for my overtaxed brain to cope with.

Continuing with the increases/decreases on every RS row and alternating stripes of color as established, every sixth row (always a WS return row) I would work in honeycomb lace. Placing the lace rows this way ensured that the lace rows would be produced in alternating yarn colors, helping to keep the overall usage of each color as even as possible.

I think I can hear what you’re wondering: Why didn’t I work the whole scarf with the lovely honeycomb lace, or if not the whole scarf, why didn’t I at least start working the lace sooner - like around the halfway point? My only reply to this is: I just did it this way. End of story. If you want to copy my idea you can work as much lace (or as little) as you like. 😊

After finishing the scarf (wingspan is about 78 inches) I ended up with a bit more of the darker Inca Gold yarn left than the lighter gold. I decided to see if it was enough to crochet a coordinating Chic Aran Headband to go with the scarf. 😁

Well, I didn’t have quite enough Inca Gold to do the entire headband, and I didn’t have enough of the pale gold to do an entire stripe, so I subbed in some aran white for the center rows 6, 3, 4, and 5. That left me enough Inca Gold to finish the headband, and I embroidered a simple chain stitch as an accent down the center of the white stripe with the pale gold to add a touch of that color to the headband as well. Yay!

Moussaillon sideways cardigan free pattern

Finished my lil sideways sweater.

This simply brilliant free pattern is called Moussaillon by Cléonis.

You know how with most patterns (especially patterns for something as complex as a cardigan) you have to repeatedly count (and count AND COUNT) every stitch, every row? With Moussaillon, you can actually relax.

Front left panel complete; left sleeve started

Moussaillon incorporates picot edging and short rows, but don't let these frighten you because it's very easy to see when it's time to add them in the course of your knitting. (What row am I on??? What stitch number is this??? You can put all these concerns to rest because you simply will see where you are at all times.)

 The English translation of the pattern is written by a nonnative English speaker, so some native English speakers may find it difficult to read. But if you are generally familiar with knitting techniques, you shouldn't have much trouble figuring it out. And if you aren't familiar with making picots or short rows, there are dozens of video tutorials on YouTube that can show you how, so you don't have to rely solely on the pattern to explain them to you.

Trying on after finishing front left panel, left sleeve, and left side

A project this size you of course will not be knitting all in one session. With some knitting projects, after you put them down and come back to them later, it can take an agonizingly long time to figure out where you left off if you didn't leave yourself detailed notes/counts/etc. With Moussaillon, it is always easy to see where you are when you return to the project.

When you get to the beginning of a row, will this be a picot row? Just look at where the previous picot is. Are you two rows away from it? Then just begin the row with regular knitting. Are you four rows away from it? Then it's time for a picot here. Simple as that.

I used two stitch markers when making this: one on the top edge to show where I began a new section, and one on the needle to show where to turn for a short row (that way I didn't have to count how many stitches were left on the needle each time it was time to make a short row). How will you know if it's time to make a short row? Well, is the stitch beside your turning marker a regular knit stitch or a wrapped stitch? If it's a regular stitch, it's time to make a short row. If it's a wrapped stitch, knit through to the end of the row. So easy!! I didn't even fuss with picking up the wraps on the knit-through rows because they all but disappear on their own inside the garter stitch fabric.

Yes, Moussaillon DOES require some counting, but the beauty of it is that you don't have to spend your time CONSTANTLY counting and recounting (and getting frustrated when someone else in the room speaks to you and causes you to lose count!). When I finished the first front panel, I counted how many rows wide it was so I could make a note to make the same number of rows when I got to the other front panel. Ditto for the width of the sleeve and the width of the underarm side. To determine the width of the back (as well as the width of the front panels and sleeves), the designer repeatedly suggests that you try on the cardigan and make adjustments based on how you want it to fit. This is very easy to do and gives you excellent feedback on how to personalize the fit.

All in all, I highly recommend this pattern. I plan to make it again and am looking forward to experimenting with different yarn weights/needle sizes and even maybe adding some lacy yarn-overs to change up the look. SO FUN!!!!

Front panel: two rows plus 28 bumps. Sleeve top: 28 bumps. Underarm side: 9 bumps. Back panel: 32 bumps.