Ric-Rac Panthers Fan Messy-Bun Earflap Beanie

The football team at our hometown high school, the Perry Panthers, has school colors of maroon and gold. They also have white away-game jerseys, and also alternate uniforms that are primarily black. I'm trying to utilize all of those colors in this hat.

Previous times when I've made this Messy-Bun Earflap Beanie (or the regular hat style), it has been using a combination of three colors. This time I'm attempting to make it using four colors. I sketched out several different stripe arrangements before settling on this configuration. I think it works pretty well at incorporating all four colors while still keeping the maroon and gold as the dominant colors.

Let's go, Panthers!!! 2023 GHSA 4A Football champions!

 

Halloween Snow Heart Beanie

Oooh, it's almost my favorite time of the year again!

Designer Leesa Nixon recently shared a photo on her socials of the Beetlejuice/Halloween colors version of her Snow Heart Beanie (paid pattern), and I just knew that I needed to make one for myself in a messy-bun/ponytail style, because Halloween is probably my favorite holiday, too!!

These Sour Apple poms by Dannisdesignscrafts on Etsy add the perfect finishing touch! This is a really fun and quick pattern to crochet, and it doesn't require very much of each color of yarn. Love it!

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!

Taylor's Beanie

When Taylor Swift wore that crocheted beanie to watch her boyfriend, Travis Kelce, play football with the Kansas City Chiefs, all of the online yarnie groups went BA-NA-NAS with people wanting to know how to make the same hat. It's the Taylor Effect, y'all.

Anyway, if you love a Swiftie, like I do, then you simply MUST make them one of these beanies. It works up quickly with simple stitches, so it's an easy project that will bring a huge thrill to your Swiftie's heart, because in no time at all they will be able to rock this hat just like Taylor did.

To replicate Taylor's look, it's important to use a bright white yarn for the main color and a rich, vibrant red with blue undertones for the stripe.

You will notice that I have the jersey number "wrong" on the beanie I made. That's because my Swiftie also loves a football player, and he happens to wear jersey number 84 (whereas Travis Kelce wears number 87). 

For the fur pom, I found an affordable pack of faux-fur poms on Amazon.

Photo showing Taylor's faux fur pompom

I am working on writing this pattern, which will be available as a free download on Ravelry. I will link to the pattern page here once it's available. Ravelry pattern link: https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/taylors-beanie-3

 

Witchypoo Scarf

This pattern came to me when I was drifting in that place where I was not quite asleep but not quite awake. It's an easy crescent moon-shaped scarf that can be made with just about any yarn at any gauge. Just in time for Halloween stitching, I present to you the Witchypoo Scarf!

The Witchypoo Scarf can be made in a solid colorway, or a variegated, or an ombre, or in any yarn that your heart desires, but I think making it in two colors really makes the curves of the crescent shape pop visually.

304 stitches on needle

Comprised of mostly mindless, movie-watching-friendly, reversible garter stitch, you only need to pay attention to what you're doing during the first few stitches of each row, where the bottom edging detail is worked as you go.

200 stitches on needle

This pattern is best worked with an interchangeable needle with a long cable (at least 42 inches) to accommodate the large number of stitches.

Seeing the black and purple stripes in my scarf reminds me of the fun witchy-poo striped tights that my daughters used to wear at Halloween, which are memories that bring a smile to my soul. I hope your soul will find reasons to smile, too, as you knit and wear this scarf.

Measuring my gauge

As you can see in the "measuring my gauge" photo above, my gauge is about 4 stitches per inch and 4 rows per inch. Details about the yarn and needles used are on my Ravelry project page.

The scarf grows quickly; the only reason why it took me a couple of months to finish mine is because I was multitasking and working on several other projects at the same time. 😂 

My only question now is: Should I release this scarf design as a paid pattern? Would you be interested in making it if the pattern was available?

Zoey Zebra Melly Teddy Ragdoll

I only made it through the first two parts of the free Zoey Zebra crochet-along before life got in the way and I regrettably had to set the project aside for a few months. By the time I was able to pick it up again, the free links were gone, so I decided to endeavor to finish the project by making the remaining pieces based on the designer Melanie Grobler's photos.

It was easy enough to approximate the legs by looking at the photos, but when it came to the ears, I decided to google around to find something similar that someone else had done and shared the steps. Why reinvent the wheel if I didn't have to, right? I used the ears from Jess Huff's Heidi the Horse free amigurumi pattern, which is also available at this link.

For the rose, I used the free 3D Rose pattern by Lisa Auch, which is also available at this link.

The eyes are 12mm black buttons from this set on Amazon.

Here is a link to my Ravelry project page.

A pocket scarf for Morgan

Last Christmas I made a reversible beanie for Morgan with the Red Heart Super Saver Zebra colorway on the outside and lined with white.

When I asked Morgan's mom for some gift ideas for this Christmas, she told me that Morgan has worn her zebra hat quite a lot throughout the past year and suggested that I make her a matching scarf for this Christmas. Challenge accepted! 

I got a few more skeins of the Zebra yarn and decided that I wanted to make a pocket scarf for Morgan. But unlike last year, when the hat knitted up like a dream, the yarn this year was being very uncooperative. I had to restart the project four times because of dropped stitches, which was frustrating, but I kept on trying because I knew this was going to be for my grandniece (if I could ever finish it!!).

During the initial failed starts, I alternated between using my Addi King and the Sentro 48, but neither one was working very well with the yarn. I finally settled on making the scarf on the Sentro and went very, verrrry slowly at first, pushing each stitch down by hand as it passed the feeder (like the technique shown in this video), to make absolutely certain that the stitches were seated properly. Then, when I had enough length completed (around 40 rows), I added some aggressive weight using the pot lid trick. The weight made the rest of the project work smoothly. (You just have to stop about every 15-20 rows to stretch the work below the pot lid and then reposition the lid closer to the top of the work to keep it high enough to keep tension on the needles.)

I knitted 320 rows, closed the tube ends, and then turned up 8 inches at each end of the scarf for the pockets and stitched the sides together using the invisible mattress stitch.

The only thing about this project that disappointed me was the way the stripes came out looking so different on the scarf than they were on the hat. The colors on the two projects do match, since it is the same colorway of the same brand of yarn, but I have to wonder if the yarn isn't being made slightly differently now than it was a year ago. (???) It's hard to say. But I hope Morgan will be happy with it! Fingers crossed!

Scrappy Ombre Wrap vest

This is a paid pattern by Salena Baca Crochet. Her Ombre Wrap pattern is designed to be a shawl, but I'm going to see if it's possible to add armholes to this to convert it into a lovely vest.

I decided to use some pink and purple scraps from my yarn stash to make this, and I tied them all together with a unifying color: the Taupe colorway of Big Twist yarn. 

For the pockets, I found a pattern for a mesh square in keeping with the feel of the base shawl's mesh fabric. It's by Jayda in Stitches on YouTube at this link. If you're trying to make a similar project but don't like the tutorial I found for a mesh square pocket, you can browse on YouTube for another mesh square pattern. There are many others on there.

My squares are 9 rounds in the mesh pattern plus a round of SC for the edging (HDC across the top edge), making a pocket of about 11 inches square. I worked 2 SC edge stitches over the chain spaces and skipped working anything in the DC stitches, to help keep the pocket edges from developing a "ruffled" or lettuce-edge look, with 3 stitches in each corner space. (Sometimes working slightly fewer edging stitches along a crocheted edge is better to help everything lie flat than working stitches one-to-one.)

I like the way the pockets turned out. My only problem is that I genuinely suck at sewing on patch pockets. I try the piece on, and I carefully pin the pockets in place so they are positioned evenly, and then when I'm all done sewing the pockets on, they're always uneven. Grrrrr!!! Oh well.

Crochet candy corn owl beanie free pattern

Just in time for looking cute on crisp autumn days, this is a messy-bun version of Sarah Zimmerman's Candy Corn Hat, free pattern on Sarah's blog Repeat Crafter Me at this link. 

I didn't have any yellow worsted or aran weight yarn in my stash, so I used some yellow Fixler Brothers Quick Knit sport weight held double, and it turned out just fine. You can read the details about the other yarns I used at my Ravelry project page.

The pattern didn't say what size of safety eyes to use for the owl's pupils, so I used 25mm (1 inch) black buttons instead, from a set I found on Amazon at this link.

My favorite resource for buying safety eyes is 6060 on Etsy, but in the case of this hat project, it was easier for me to use buttons.

Panthers Pride

I made this set to gift to the Perry Panther in our family, Daniel. These were both machine-knit. I made the scarf on my Addi King Size (46 pins), and the hat is made on my Sentro 48. The stripe pattern is based on the Years 3/4 scarves in Harry Potter. Perry High School's colors are maroon and gold, so I used Red Heart Super Saver in the Burgundy (main color) and Saffron (contrast color) colorways. I might decide to add some fringe to the scarf later.

Hat recipe on Sentro 48: Main color 30 rows. Stripes section: 2 rows contrast color; 4 rows main color; 2 rows contrast color. Finish hat by continuing in main color for another 72 rows. 110 rows total.

Scarf recipe on Addi 46: Starting/ending block 15 rows main color. Stripes section: 2 rows contrast color; 6 rows main color; 2 rows contrast color. Large block 30 rows main color. Repeat alternating sections of "stripes section" and "large block" five more times (for a total of six large blocks), ending with a "stripes section." Repeat "starting/ending block" to finish. 280 rows total. (Can add more large block sections alternating with stripes sections for a longer scarf, if desired.)

Perry High School's team colors are very similar to Gryffindor House. 😊

 

Montie's scarf, Chapter 2

I made Montie's first scarf in 2009, which was in my days Before Ravelry (I joined Ravelry on Dec. 1, 2010), so I don't have a Ravelry project page for it. Even so, Montie's scarf was based on my free pattern for Knitted School Scarf based on Harry Potter Hogwarts House Colors, which also existed in my days Before Ravelry. But Montie being Montie, he wanted to put his OWN spin on his scarf, so his request was that I make the stripe sections on each end with three bands of contrasting color while the middle sections have the usual stripe sections with two contrasting bands. He also wanted the contrast stripes to be a bit wider than in the original pattern.

Fast-forward after 11 years of wear and tear and Montie's original scarf (on the left in the above photo) was starting to look a bit ratty with woven ends popping out of place. (This is the one thing I hate about knitting vs. crochet - it's so much easier to keep ends buried in crochet but harder to keep them hidden away in knitting.) I wanted to make a new one for him with the same colors and stripe pattern, except I wanted the new one to be made in a tubular knit style (where the ends can be totally hidden inside!!). You can see the ends poking out of Montie's original scarf in the photo below.

Fortunately Caron still makes the same Dark Country Blue and Sunshine yellow colorways that I used 11 years ago to make the original scarf, so the new one will look nearly identical.

The only difficulty with wanting to reknit another scarf for Montie is how much knitting hurts my hands anymore. So I thought the Sentro knitting machine might be able to help me with this project. I know there are videos on YouTube (like this one and this one, for example) for how to make jogless color changes on the knitting machine, but I haven't figured that technique out yet so I worked this scarf with standard/stepped color changes. I figure I can always make Montie another scarf later when my knitting machine skills are more advanced. 😆

On my first attempt to make the new scarf with the knitting machine I followed the same row counts from the written pattern: I cast on several rows with a waste yarn before starting the first scarf row in blue. I worked a half-height block of 24 rows then a three-stripe section (4 rows in yellow / 6 rows in blue / 4 rows yellow / 6 rows blue / 4 rows yellow). Next a full-height block of 48 rows in blue. Then a two-stripe section (4 rows yellow / 6 rows blue / 4 rows yellow). Then alternated a full-height block in blue followed by a two-stripe section three more times. One more full-height block in blue followed by a three-stripe section and ending with a half-height block in blue. To finish, secure all color changes with knots on the inside of the tube; flat-close the ends of the tube; and secure any remaining ends inside the tube. Scarf is 454 rows total.

Unfortunately at this gauge the 454 rows turned out a scarf that was about 114 inches long, or nearly 9.5 feet. LOL!!! Montie is about 74 inches tall, sooooo ... this scarf is about 3.5 feet too long for him. Bah-ha-ha!

Amazingly, it only took about 4 hours to knit that length on the machine. (And the only reason it took that long was because I was working slowly to be careful with all the color changes and to keep a close eye on it for dropped stitches because this Sentro tries to drop stitches fairly often.) But clearly I was going to have to try again to get the scarf to a more manageable length. The machine produced a fabric of about 4 rows per inch, so to get a finished scarf of a length that's in the ballpark of 74 inches or so I was going to have to fit all the stripes into roughly 300 rows (300/4=75 inches).

My brain doesn't like to math very much, so it took me a couple of days of mulling to come up with a new set of row counts to rework the scarf on the knitting machine. My new plan is to start with a half-height block in blue (16 rows); then a three-stripe section of 2 yellow, 4 blue, 2 yellow, 4 blue, 2 yellow (14 rows); then a full block in blue (32 rows); then a two-stripe section of 2 yellow, 4 blue, 2 yellow (8 rows); [repeat the full block/two-stripes section four more times] (160 rows); one more full block (32 rows); a three-stripe section (14 rows); and lastly a half-block (16 rows). This adds up to 292 rows, which should result in a scarf that's close to 74 inches long.

It took about 2.5 hours to knit the scarf the second time. There is one spot when I was about 3/4 of the way through where I dropped a stitch and didn't see it until a few rows later when the big run opened up. I was about to scream and throw everything into my "to work on again later" pile, but I watched two videos that show how to fix a dropped stitch, this one and this one. I used the crochet hook method in the second video, but you can see in my photo that the fix turned out a little funky. Oh well - this is literally only my second knitting machine project, so I'm not going to freak out over a minor imperfection.

Afghans two ways

Same yarn, two different afghan styles. Which one do you like best?

We've had the spiral one in our living room for the last five years, and now I'm cannibalizing it to make the one on the right.

Improvisational vest of many purples

I finally finished my funky, scrappy vest of many purples. 😁

Here's a link to my Ravelry project page.

Following the very helpful and detailed guidance at Karen Templer's Fringe Association blog, I decided to make a V-neck vest in stripes that would use up some of the scraps in my stash.

Following the instructions for a shaped back of the neck sweater, I started with an i-cord cast on and continued the i-cord throughout along the vest front edges. I wanted the vest to have a deep V, so I increased the front every fourth row. (I decided that if I make another one of these, I'll increase every-other row next time.)

Worked the body in garter stitch with one stockinette row inset at every 20th row for a bit of textural interest. The stripes change color simply where each particular scrap ball ran out. (It would have been "neater" to only change colors while working RS rows, yes, but this project was intended to use up stash scraps, so by golly, I used each scrap up completely.) :-)

I wanted the bottom to have a sort of handkerchief hem effect in the front and be longer in front than the back, so after achieving sufficient width for the front edges of the vest to meet (increasing every fourth row), where one would normally stop increasing the width for a regular-looking vest, I continued to add increases at the vest front (only faster, working them every-other row) until the desired back length was achieved. I wanted the front edges to drape into pointed ends sort of like the way the ends of a shawl drape. The final result came pretty close to what I was hoping for.

My blankie

♫ It's my blankie so I'll lounge if I want to, lounge if I want to ... ♫ You would lounge, too, if you had a blankie, too! 😁

This shot captures ALL the colors corner to corner.