Northampton neckerchief

This afternoon between stacking wood in the barn and building a raised bed for my garlic crop, I managed to finish knitting my three-color purple scarf. The pattern is from New England Knits and is called the Northampton neckerchief.

I feel ho-hum about it but the pattern was relatively fun to knit. I think the lacey border is my favorite part. I didn't use the fingerweight yarn called for but a DK weight instead and because of that my scarf lacks drape but is really warm. I used three different Debbie Bliss Rialto purples and silver-lined gold beads.

I am actually looking forward to wearing it with my jacket for a little splash of color (my cold weather jackets are black and camel) but today was much too hot for that.

After calling it a "neck brace", I decided to try taking photos myself instead of asking my husband. Consequently, he's definitely not getting cinnamon buns tomorrow...

William's Toasty Topper

With a small amount of time here and there, I love a good quick knit. William has already outgrown the hat I knit for him last year so when I saw the Toasty Topper pattern by Alexis Riggs, I couldn't resist. I had been thinking of knitting something similar last year for him but wasn't sure how to connect the scarf to the hat. We have days here where the wind blows so cold and hard that any crevice exposed to the weather, usually wrists, ankles and necks, will get so chilled you have to return home.

This hat is the perfect solution to the wind chill/exposed to the weather parts problem since the scarf is attached to the hat and provides total coverage in the back of the neck.

William wore his outside today to play and eat the late raspberries that have come in better than the earlier crop. I knit it with Lion Brand Wool-ease, thick and quick. Admittedly, I didn't look at the pattern, but I followed the picture fairly closely, making my scarf slightly longer than the 24" called for in the pattern because rather than knit it in double ribbing, which is very stretchy, I opted for seed stitch for this one.

If I had to make the hat over again, I would make the scarf connect further around the hat band to better cover his ears. (You'll see that the original pattern does have this feature - I should've followed it!) I may add ear flaps that simply hang down for that purpose to improve this one.

Now Savannah wants one in raspberry or cilantro (William's is in Denim blue), and I can't wait to make her one!