Chickadee

£5.00

With a scoop neck featuring a border of birds that frames the face, pleasing garter stitch edges, and darted shaping Chickadee is sweet, fun to knit and very wearable. As the two samples shown illustrate the colours you choose can create very different looks, have fun experimenting.

Chickadee is available as an individual pattern and as part of the book Little Red in the City. Follow that link if you are interested in purchasing the whole book rather than just the Chickadee pattern, which can be purchased here.

Sizes
30[32, 34, 36, 38, 40, 42, 44, 46, 48, 50, 52, 54, 56, 58, 60]” bust
76[81, 86, 91, 97, 102, 107, 112, 117, 122, 127, 132, 137, 142, 147, 153] cm bust

Yarn
Double knitting or light worsted weight yarn with a suggested gauge of 5-6 sts per inch.

The colourwork yoke will work best in a springy, woolly yarn. Woollen spun, non superwash yarns that will bloom a little when washed are perfect. The stranded colourwork yoke in this weight could easily become too thick and bulky so avoid heavy, densely spun yarns. Chickadee is a simple, versatile pattern however, and different effects can be acheived with yarn with other properties. Gauge is given over stocking stitch but it’s a good idea to swatch a repeat of the yoke pattern to see the effect of a substituted yarn. Even using the suggested yarn swatching the yoke pattern will allow you to get familiar with working the stranded colourwork at an even tension and will show how your colour choices work in combination, something that’s often surprising.

Each 1” difference in the length of the body will affect the amount of the main colour required by approx 5%.

Shown in Green Mountain Spinnery Local Color and New Mexico Organic, Local Color is the plant dyed version of the undyed New Mexico Organic (100% Wool, 180 yds/165m, 2.01oz/57g) in the following colours.

Ysolda’s version:
Main Colour – New Mexico Organic – White
Yoke Background – Local Color – Sunshine
Birds – Local Color – Smoke
Yoke Border – Local Color – Fern

Amanda’s version:
Main Colour – Local Color – Blueberry
Yoke Background – New Mexico Organic – White
Birds – Local Color – Amaranth
Yoke Border – Local Color – Aster

Main colour 855[895, 905, 1010, 1095, 1155, 1215, 1280, 1335, 1395, 1500, 1550, 1625, 1720, 1765, 1840] yards / 780[820, 830, 925, 1000, 1055, 1110, 1170, 1220, 1275, 1370, 1415, 1485, 1575, 1615, 1680] metres

Background yoke 100[100, 100, 100, 110, 110, 110, 120, 125, 125, 135, 135, 135, 145, 145, 145] yards / 90[90, 90, 90, 100, 100, 100, 110, 115, 115, 125, 125, 125, 135, 135, 135] metres

Birds and yoke border 20[20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 25, 25, 25, 25, 25, 25, 30, 30, 30] yards / metres

Needles and Notions
US 5 / 3.75mm circular, a 24” / 60cm needle can be used for the body of the sweater, but a 32” / 80cm or longer needle will be easier for the edging.
Scrap yarn for holding sts.
Stitch markers.
7/8” / 22mm buttons – 7 for sizes up to 46 and 8 for larger sizes. Adding length to the body may require additional buttons, a larger or more decorative button can look good at the top.

Gauge
20 sts and 28 rows = 4” / 10cm in st st knit flat.