Striped Knits

I have been knitting away making some arm warmers and an earflap hat out of this great colored yarn from Red Heart, the color is 0964 Primary and it has all of my favorite colors and stripes really well.

I used a combination of patterns blended together for the hat.  The arm warmers are a modified version of Slither from Knitty, I knitted them in the round and left off the stripes and buttons.  I am really excited to wear these this weekend, it’s finally getting cold enough for winter knits.

Slither and Swell from Knitty.com

The minute I saw the pattern for "slither" the super long armwarmers on knitty I wanted to make them, but I wasn't sure that I was up for the challenge. I still think of myself as a beginning knitter and all those decreases, intarsia, button holes and the thumb gusset? I went for it, after all you can always frog the whole thing, right?

I knitted frantically for three days and then spent the forth day sewing on the buttons. I really like how they turned out.I love the shaping, it is one of the things that I find so fascinating about knitting. This pattern is really well written, it was a little complicated to do the shaping and the striping at the same time, but once I got the hang of it I did fine.

I also had enough yarn left over to make "swell" an earflap hat. I could actually make one in all three colors and I just might!

I had to go up two sizes of needle to get the proper gauge on this one and I also changed it up a bit. I didn't do the intarsia wave pattern or the peace sign purls on the earflaps. I also made the back longer than the front and didn't purl across the earflaps to make a ridge where they are connected to the hat. The hat turned out light weight and warm. I may add a fleece lining, but I think this may be the perfect earflap hat.

Yarn used Cascade 220 in black, dark plum, and cabernet heather.