Knit with Joy

 I've long admired the clothes from Dressed in Joy. I've wanted to support this black woman-owned business for a while, but I have been worried about fit. And anytime there's a sale, the terms have been final sale. 

But this fall, it seemed like they were discontinuing their short puffer coats, and they were steeply discounted. I couldn't resist. I sized up, and decided if the coat wasn't for me, at that price I could afford to pass it on to someone it did fit. Luckily, I love my new coat. When it arrived, I realized I had some yarn that would be nearly perfect for a hat and mittens to coordinate with my new coat.

I wasn't perfectly right, but I wasn't wrong either. The Big Birdie yarn from Dimond Laine isn't a perfect fit for the Strobus hat and mittens by Mary Lou Egan, but again, it works. And that yarn is so soft and so warm. 

To make the pattern work with the yarn, I used the stitch count for the small size, but knit to the dimensions of the medium size. The mittens are knit in repeating stripes like the original pattern. For the hat, I made stripes that were more symmetrical - green to red to pale pink to bright pink and then echoing back - pale pink, red, green, and black. I really liked how that looked for these colors.

I wore the coat with mittens and hat half-way up the side of Mount Washington on my first trip to New Hampshire. There's lots of my hand-knits in the picture - my husband and my daugher-in-law are both wearing hats I knit, while Carley's dad and Sam, my son, are wearing hats knit by Carley. She's a newly hatched but amazing knitter. Oh, yes, and then there's Carley's sweater, a Humulus by Isabell Kraemer that I made back in 2019. 

Strobus mittens and hat

• designed by Mary Lou Egan
• Big Birdie yarn, Aran weight, 79% baby alpaca and 21% silk in colors Blackbird, Locally Grown, Vixen, Pout, and Pop Rocks. All leftovers from other projects. 
• on size 6 and size 3 needles