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Witch Hat Redo and a Flat Cat

Several years ago I knit a witch hat.  Actually, I knit two witch hats. The first I knit one for myself and one for my son in-law, Matt. Matt’s hat is more Gandolf and mine is more Elphaba. 

This is Matt’s hat drying-my knitted things picture taking at least has improved over the years

This year I decided mine needed some sprucing up. Over the years it had become….well…limp. It was always more floppy than I had wanted and I never really liked that that brim was unstructured. 

To address the unstructured brim I spent the better part of two days sewing bias tape to the underside by hand. I inserted a 12 gauge black florist wire as I went. Sewing black bias tape onto black fabric with black thread while inserting black wire is not for the faint of heart.  

It was worth it though. Having been felted again it has shrunk a bit, becoming more comfortable to wear and now that the brim is wired I can shape it to suit my preference. Which I really like. 

I added a spider pin for a little glamorous panache. To go along with my revamped hat I also knit a flat cat. Yes, A Flat Cat, or Professor Meow-Gona-Cowl pattern by Tiny Owl Knits. I am pretty happy with the results on both the hat and the cat.

I’ve upgraded the hat and made the cat for my “Witch Costume.” I’ll wear these with all black, don my wand and Sheath at my waist and set up a Witch’s Apothecary Storefront at tonight’s neighborhood Trunk-or-Treat. I’m looking forward to this and have made goody packs for the kids. 

I made about 100 of these, give or take a few, and they took about 30-35 hours to put together 

The packs have a 4-5 pieces of candy each and are ‘simply” wrapped in brown paper and raffia. I collecting feathers mostly from our neighbors chickens (as they were molting and mine were not) and washed them. I used a wax seal and then silver Sharpie on the raised bits. The labels have our address incase people want to know which Apothecary they came from. I suppose my vision for these are that if you purchased some things from my apothecary it would arrive via Owl Mail, well at the very least, Chicken Mail. 

To round out my outfit I’ll wear my black and green striped socks and yarn danskos. I also have a Chatelaine necklace of sorts, made out of assorted things. I will carry the Book of Spells I made a few years ago. I did upgrade of few things in this book this week. too. 

Are you dressing up for Halloween? I think I only dress up as a Witch. I’m going to print some social media icons and those along with butterfly wings will be either Tim or Chuck’s costume. Although it suits Chuck the best, you know he is the social butterfly in this marriage after all. 

Happy Knitting, Happy haunting. 

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Louise Cardigan

I have finished my sweater, Hanna finished her sweater and Peggy finished hers! We all used the Louise Cardigan pattern. We all used Cascade Eco + yarns but Peggy’s purple yarn was one she picked up in Germany.

My finished sweater

 

I used buttons recycled from dishes

 

Hanna’s sweater, she used antique buttons
from my grandmas button box

 

Peggy’s sweater, she used wood buttons

 

Peggy added a touch of fairisle to hers. I made my sleeves too long so I think I may go back and shorten them. There’s always room to make a pattern your own.
SO…. I want to talk about the pattern itself. I purchased the pattern on Ravelry and was excited about it. I loved the look, it was my first bottom up adult sweater so I was looking forward to working on the new-to-me style. It went really quickly, I knit the body and the sleeves, all going well. At the joining part for the yoke it all seemed chaotic… unaddressed things, omitted things, confusing things, I know I talked about this before. I worked my way through it, I made notes, helped Hanna sort the pattern out and she finished hers. Talked extensively with Peggy about the pattern as she worked through her sweater. Now, Peggy is an extremely experienced sweater knitter, she agreed the pattern had some issues. She went through all the notes on Ravelry, as I had, finding no significant complaints either. SO bizarre.
I contacted Madder, they responded to my email. Madder said they would review my notes and see if they felt the pattern needed an errata or updating. As of today I haven’t seen any changes to the pattern on Ravelry.  That’s okay. I’m happy with my final sweater, Hanna Is happy and Peggy is happy. Bring on the sweater weather!
Happy Knitting xo
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Shusui Shrug

The Shusui Shrug by Susanne Sommer, I am seriously obsessed with this pattern! I have done Brioche just enough to understand the concept. I by no means am an expert.  This shawl/shrug is changing that rapidly.

I first heard of this pattern on the Wool Work Shop youtube podcast.  The construction is very unique,  it has a combination of brioche and garter stitch.  Susanne has also provided a youtube video for the set up. That was a huge benefit for me. I started this shrug several times. Not because it was so hard but rather I had color combo issues.  I strongly advise totally different color choices for your light and dark. Really, like colors that you don’t even think match.

Wollmeise PinBall Wizard and PotzBlitz

This was my first choice. I ordered this yarn specifically for this project. I was thinking summer trees turning into fall trees. The tone of the colors is much too similar. also having the color variations it’s too jumbled to see the design of the pattern.

Knit Picks Hawthorn Speckle
Cosmic and Italian Ice

This was the second combo.
The colors are again too similar once knit up in the pattern, too much the same tone. You couldn’t really see the pattern.

Knitpicks Hawthorne Kettle Dyed and Speckle
BLackBird and Cosmic
This is the winning combo. I decided to knit this for my daughter, Hanna. It reminds me a bit of a skeleton in this color combo. A win for this girl, I’m quite sure. Find my project on Ravelry to follow up dates.
Loving this combo!!!!I

I’m working away, ticking off all the repeats in the first section. I am using the Knit Companion app, I like to for any pattern that has multiple charts or instructions. I have the paid version and it is well worth it. I like that I can create new pages with my chosen parts of the pattern, really letting me focus on the immediate instructions.  As an example I pulled the repeat of rows R3-6 out of the section on Page 2 to of the pattern, originally this section has rows R1-6. Then I added in colored highlights to make it very clear which were light colored rows and which were dark.

A snippet of the pattern, in the app, so you can see what I mean.

The app enables so many other things. A row counter, a highlighter with many color choices, a pop-up legend and notes section, row bars you can move along as you go, so many I couldn’t possibly cover them all. Check out the Knit Companion app. It’s so good.

Until next time, Happy Knitting, Happy Life.