These hats would be adorable for young children for Halloween. Shown are an Owl and a Butterfly hat for a boy and girl. There are downloadable templates and a video with step-by-step instructions. Before starting this project, you will need to felt an old 100 percent wool sweater. Simply wash the sweater in a washing machine with plenty of detergent and hot water, and dry in clothes dryer on high heat. The soap, agitation, and heat will cause the scales of the wool fibers to open up, lock together, and condense. Washing the sweater with something made of heavy cloth, like a pair of jeans, will speed the process. You may need to wash and dry the sweater a few times — every sweater’s different. Test your sweater for felting by snipping the edge — it should not fray. If it does, wash and dry again.
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Play with Color in the Pixel Tweed Pullover
A lot of times when I share knitting patterns that are meant to be colorful I will say something about how they would be good stash busters because you can change colors as often as you like or need to as you run out of yarn.
I’m not going to make that recommendation when it comes to the Pixel Tweed Pullover by James N. Watt.
That’s because for this pattern to work it really does best as three distinct, repeating colors throughout the project.
James was inspired by the red, green and blue pixels on vintage TVs to create their color palette, but of course you can use any three colors you like. This is another pattern where looking through the finished projects on Ravelry is super helpful because you can see how different color combinations work. Sometimes if the colors are too close in value one of them almost disappears, but that’s also an interesting look.
Whatever colors you choose, this is a bottom-up crewneck is worked flat in pieces, with all over color patterning worked with slip stitches on a garter stitch base. The cuffs, neckline and bottom hem, as well as seams on the sleeves, are worked in one of the colors.
It’s available in nine sizes and ranges from a chest measurement of 36.5 to 68.5 inches, or 76 to 174 cm. It is meant to be worn with 4 to 8 inches (10-20 cm) of positive ease.
I love how this tweed pattern almost looks like crochet from a distance, and I think it would be a lot of fun to knit. This is one way to get some practice working with multiple colors if you haven’t done so before without having to pay too much attention to following a pattern or reading a chart.
The pattern is available on Ravelry.
[Photo: James N. Watt]