Finished Project: Irene Chunky Earwarmer

Another sample for The Black Squirrel Berkeley in time for the 2024 Bay Area Yarn Crawl! To balance out the summery tote bag sample, I was also commissioned to make this wintery earwarmer/headband accessory.

Pattern – Irene Chunky Earwarmer by Siobhan Kelley (Cable River Designs). It is available for purchase on Ravelry for $4.00 CAD (in this case, the pattern was purchased by The Black Squirrel).

Pictured below on me (with an outfit that does not coordinate with it). For reference when I measure my head for hats I get about a 23” circumference.

Modifications

I ended up following the pattern exactly for the main fabric. For the bit surrounding the twist, I stitched that down and I used 4 rows of the stitch used at the edge of the main fabric.

Specs

The skein I had weighed 102 g, and finished fabric including the yarn ends weighed 63 g.

Yarn

Tundra is slightly textured looking and the plies are visible in the silhouette (it looks "ropey"). I'd describe it as sleek not fluffy wool and slightly hairy. It would be great if you want a wintry and slightly rustic look but a nice luxurious fabric that can be worn next to skin. I think it was well-suited for this project.

60% Baby Alpaca, 30% Merino, 10% Silk
109 yards / 100 g
Recommended knitting needle size US 10-11 (6-8 mm), crochet hook size US L-M (8-9 mm).

I used the “Greenland” colorway.

Tundra retails for $28.50 + tax per 100 g skein. The yarn in this case was provided by the shop since this was made as a sample.

It frogs okay, had to really yank a few times when frogging the whole thing but expected for yarn with a slight hairiness. Felt sturdy and didn't feel scratchy or greasy or drying at all while working with it.

Hook / Gauge

First swatch was chaotic because I was figuring out the stitch mechanics and not worrying about tension. Got row gauge on second swatch with the suggest hook size of 8.0 mm with an 18 st foundation chain for the swatch. The unblocked gauge ended up is 5" for the full pattern on short side which was bang on, but was at (12 st = 4") instead of (10 st = 4"). However for the full project the gauge was closer to (11 st = 4”) since I think my tension on the cables tightened up slightly after working a few of them.

I ended up going with the suggested foundation chain length instead of shortening it since I wasn’t sure how much it would end up scrunching after assembling it and I suspected my tension would get slightly tighter since I tend to work cabled stitches on the loose side while I’m getting used to them. My unblocked fabric came out to 21" x 5” and it didn’t change dimensions after washing (which I did before seaming it so it would dry faster). It was about 20” in circumference after finishing and I found that this was comfortable on, but I suspect this would slide off if I was actually moving around.

Note that this sort of fabric while it looks solid when worn or folded on itself, is actually somewhat holey.

Notes

While it is a typically priced pattern for a one-size accessory, I would not generally recommend the pattern. It does not include the negative ease for the intended fit. The entire PDF only has one small photo of the finished objects taken cropped and at an angle. It had no straight on photo of the project after crocheting and before finishing, or even of a pattern swatch, so it's difficult to tell if your tension on the cables matches what the designer intended.

However I was able to complete the project and the pattern does not appear to contain errors, so if you already have some experience with cabled fp/bp stitches or are okay having to reference additional outside resources and love how the finished object looks, the pattern is serviceable. I did think the finished object looked cute, although I’m more of a beanie person than an earwarmer person myself.