The Kid-Knit Catch Up Post

Both of my kids have outgrown their winter hats, and they both have tried to steal my fingerless gloves.  So I decided to make them each a full set of winter accessories - hat, fingerless gloves, and new scarves.  This whole concept evolved from the moment I started thinking about it.  What really happened is I saw this yarn on sale at Jo-Ann:

Deborah Norville Serenity Garden Yarn in "Gems".  I originally took this picture to prove to my friend Micki that it was in fact Deborah Norville that was working up so soft and amazing.

I happen to have a child (K) who loves everything rainbow, and I thought it would be perfect for a set for her.  Until I knit a test swatch.  The color changes didn't happen the way I expected, and from the first swatch it just didn't seem like her.  But it really looked like her sister.  (Isn't that funny, how a color palette can have personality?)  So I went back to Jo-Ann and found this yarn:

Still Deborah Norville Serenity Garden Yarn, in "Mountain Heather."

And the way it works up is sooooooo K.  But the pattern for the fingerless mitts I chose (Sojourn) was not her at all (but very H).  And this, my friends, is when Pinterest comes in handy.  I searched through my "Yarny Goodness" pinboard until I found this cable pattern on craftcookie.com, which just fits K's personality.  It's called Angel Wings!  I had to adapt the Sojourn pattern a little bit, but not much.

Pattern for this cable is here.  Image belongs to craftcookie.com

The next problem to tackle was that it gets cold in Idaho, and my little darlings can't walk around with exposed fingertips.  So I wanted to add a "hood" to the fingerless mitts - and it worked!  I'll do a tutorial on how I did this, it was kind of fun.

The hood actually comes down far enough that they can tuck their thumbs in if the weather turns cold.  These are great for fall and spring days, I make them wear real gloves when it snows! (Also she didn't do a great job of posing so you can see the cable, but it ended up right where I wanted it, on the outside of her hand/wrist.)

The final step in the evolution of this project was in the creation of the hat - they both said they wanted ear flaps.  H had a hat a couple of years ago that had flaps, and there was a buttonhole in one flap and a long string on the other, so she could secure it under her chin.  It took a bit of pattern adapting to get these right but finally:

The cable in K's hat is in the flaps - that made them a little longer.

There's also a tutorial coming on this.  I've sent my instructions to some brave volunteers to check that my math works for other people's kids!

H's Sojourn scarf in progress - it's ripply.

The scarves were the last thing I did.  H's Sojourn pattern worked so nicely, all I had to do was cast on a multiple of 6 (with a 3 stitch border on each side), and boom I had a scarf.  The Angel Wings made things a little more interesting - I actually had the main cable motif run up the center, and I had half the motif on each side, but offset, so when the cable pattern in the center twisted, the side motifs were ending/starting.  In short, there was more math happening in my house than I really wanted, but I'm so happy with the result:

H's hat actually has to be remade, because somebody (me) didn't measure anything correctly.  It was 1.5" to short, and I tried to guess how long her ear flaps should be.  But her scarf and mitts turned out perfect.  And the best part is, I finished everything before the snow arrived - the second week of November (and then we were in the 60s yesterday, in the second week of December).