Doodle Headband

One last project for 2024, which I bound off late last night: my first colorwork knitting!

The base pattern is the Doodle Headband by Jamie Lomax, which I bought at her (Pacific Knit Co.’s) booth at Flock Fiber Festival in Seattle this past August. For this small project, I used a single snowflake chart from Jamie’s Winter Doodle Card Deck.

This took me less than 2 weeks to knit up while watching TV after work; I put it down during holiday travel and then was able to bind off and knit in the ends! And y’all…I had soooo much fun knitting colorwork. I foresee a lot of this in my future. Jamie’s Doodle Card Decks are also plentiful and can be combined in so many different ways—so smart to create a modular system that enables knitters to take a more active design role.

Learning the basics

Pacific Knit Co. patterns do assume you know a little bit about knitting colorwork, so for the basics I consulted Tin Can Knits’ quick and easy walkthrough. For this project I used their “first timer’s easy-peasy method”, which worked out nicely for someone who knits English style. Soon I might try two-handed knitting.

I also appreciated that Tin Can Knits explained yarn dominance and how to achieve it in a very simple way. It was so satisfying to be able to make sure my pattern really popped, from my very first colorwork! You might notice that when I switched into the band with the dark blue background, I was still holding the dark blue yarn dominant, so some of the stitches in the first row or so recede a little more than the others.

What’s next

My friends remarked that the yarn I chose for this looks on-brand for the Seattle Kraken, and it totally does! I might try to lean into that and knit a colorwork beanie (touque) fit for game day.