DIY Christmas Gift Ideas #4

Reversible Brioche Rib Cap and Neckwarmer

Today's handmade gift idea is a warm, cozy, cushy stocking cap and/or a matching neckwarmer.  The Reversible Brioche Rib Cap is suitable for either a man or a woman.  It is warm and stretchy, and fits a range of head sizes.  The matching Reversible Brioche Rib Neckwarmer is a fun accessory which can be worn in different ways to create different looks.  One ball of each color should make both a cap and a neckwarmer.

The Brioche Rib stitch may sound daunting to some, but it is actually not difficult to do.  In fact, I find the basic stitch to be good for relatively mindless knitting.  Because it is knitted in two colors, it looks more complex than it is.  Shhh...don't tell anyone that only one color is knitted at a time!  The basic fabric has only a two-row repeat for the cap (which is knitted in the round), and a four-row repeat for the neckwarmer (which is knitted flat).  The most complex part of the cap pattern is the decreases for the crown, and the most complex part of the neckwarmer pattern is working the buttonhole.  The two-color brioche rib fabric has one color predominant on one side, and the other color predominant on the other side.  The patterns for these accessories contain tips and many photos of the techniques used in the projects, to help you knit the item successfully.

The neckwarmer can be worn in so many ways!  It is fastened by a button, and can be worn with the fastener in the front, in back, or on either side.  Wear it over or under your coat, depending on your mood.  The collar can be worn up or down, or with one side up and one down, to create many different looks.  See this blog post for ideas:  An Unexpected Opportunity for Creativity  In the meantime, here are a few photos to get the creative juices flowing:

These fun projects work up relatively quickly, and either or both would make a great gift!


Visit Mountain Mist's Craftsy Pattern Store »

Inspiration: Novelty Yarn

 

I was recently given a couple of skeins of Ice Yarns Frilly, a new novelty yarn that creates a ruffle when you knit or crochet with it.  This is a very popular type of yarn these days, and I had been meaning to try it but hadn’t gotten around to it.  Thanks to my daughter, Katie, I now had some to play around with.

I had the idea that I’d like to try something a little different with this yarn than the typical scarf pattern one usually sees it used for.  Katie had made a beautiful headband with some of hers, but I didn’t want to duplicate what she had done.

As I looked at the yarn (which in its un-knitted state looks like a thick, ½ inch wide braid), I thought that I would like to try using it in tandem with another yarn.  I searched my stash and found just the thing…Cascade Eden, a lovely bamboo yarn, in a shade of hot pink that was very close to the darker edge of the Frilly.  I reasoned that if I used another yarn for the base of the scarf, the novelty yarn would go farther. 

To make the scarf, I began crocheting with the Eden for a few rounds, then worked a slip stitch with the Frilly for a round, working into the darker edge of the braid so the lighter shade was at the outer edge of the ruffle.  This worked pretty well, and I believe it used less of the Frilly than working in single crochet would have used.  I worked another round in Eden, and then decided to try a different effect on the edge.  Working into the light edge of the Frilly this time, I used the Eden to slip stitch the Frilly to each stitch of the scarf, inserting the hook closer than I had on the previous Frilly round.  This created a less ruffled look, with the darker shade on the outer edge of the ruffle.

I had enough of the Frilly left that I was able to make a cap with a couple of rounds of Frilly with the remainder of the ball of yarn!