READY FOR WINTER - KNIT HAT AND SCARF PATTERNS

Ever since my Roving Acres yarn arrived, I've been DYING to get to work on my winter hat and scarf.  When I contacted Beth at Roving Acres about getting a custom-dyed yarn, I asked for a variegated that went from very light gray to charcoal.  And that's exactly what I got.  The alpaca/merino wool is soft and luxurious, but is going to be so wonderfully warm when the temperatures drop.  (Considering we had about five minutes of snow flurries the other afternoon, I think I'm getting this done none too soon.)

The hat pattern is the Hurricane Hat (free pattern here), using a 16" size 7 circular needle and a set of size 7 double-pointed needles.  I actually made this hat out of a variegated acrylic yarn in the spring as one of my first, practice knitting projects.  It actually worked (a boost to the new knitter), but I made it a little small.  I liked the pattern, though, with the swirl design, and ordered the wool yarn with this hat in mind.  Foghorn saw the finished product this week and immediately said, "Can you make one for me?"  Well, it so happened I still had that acrylic one from the spring that was a wee bit too small and was of a similar variegated gray color.  She's thrilled.  I think my husband is planning how to hide when my daughter and I go out in our matching hats.  We already harass him with our 1970s-patterned matching pajamas.

The scarf is the same pattern as I used for my mother's scarf/cowl (found here).  Again, I used size 8 needles and cast on 38 stitches (making it about 8-1/2" wide).  In total I had about 550 yards of the Roving Acres yarn, so I made the hat first and then just worked on the scarf until I ran out of yarn.  After making the scarf for my mother I was totally in love with the waffle-y texture and had to the do a duplicate for myself.

Both patterns are easy enough for a novice knitter, but have enough variety to be interesting to work on and they produce nice finished items.   Next up, I'm thinking a new, more sophisticated dog sweater for St. Jimmi...








You might also be interested in:

*  FOUR FABULOUS FREE CHRISTMAS STOCKING KNITTING PATTERNS

*  SO MAD I COULD KNIT

I HEART ROVING ACRES YARN

Back in September I wrote about the scarf I made for my mother from yarn she picked out at the Wool Gathering in Yellow Springs, Ohio.  It was a gorgeous variegated yarn from Roving Acres, a family farm in Ohio, and I feared not having enough to finish the scarf so I bought two skeins.  The scarf only took one and I left it up to my mother to decide what she'd like me to make with the other.

She chose a cowl, but most of the patterns I saw took too much yarn.  Turns out she made her own cowl from fabric last year, just a simple piece of material sewn together to make a circle.  I used her cloth cowl for the measurements and then tweaked a scarf pattern from Bernat (found here).  I used smaller needles than called for and added stitches to increase the width.  I then knitted until...well...until I ran out of yarn.  The edges were sewn together to form a circle.  It's smaller than most cowls out there, but just the right size for my mother's needs.  The finished product is 8-1/2" wide and 29" long doubled (or 58" total).  (Complete notes can be found on my Ravelry page here.)

Now, a word about that yarn.  I'm in LOVE with it.  I fondled many skeins at the Roving Acres booth at the Wool Gathering before my mother chose these particular colors.  The yarn is a worsted weight alpaca/merino wool and it's just delicious!  It's warm and wooly, but not scratchy at all.  And the hand-dyeing is just gorgeous.  After making two projects with their yarn I just couldn't take it anymore and had to get some for myself for a hat/scarf project.  Beth at Roving Acres was wonderful to work with and dyed for me the exact color of variegated yarn I wanted.  (They also have an Etsy shop here.)  I wanted shades of gray, from very light up to charcoal, and it came out beautiful.  I'm busily clicking away on the hat.  Hopefully I'll have the finished product to show in a week or two (before the first snow flies, preferably).

It's so nice to get back to working on an adult project after many weeks of creating Christmas stockings.  It's like that giddy feeling that a mother gets when she can finally pick up a novel of her choice after 5,298 readings of Goodnight, Moon.  Priceless...


You might also be interested in:

*  SO MAD I COULD KNIT