chickens – New England's Narrow Road

A Hat Pattern For Those Who Raise Backyard Chickens

I’m knitting a fun little hat with a motif of chickens! The stranded colorwork pattern is called the Solstice Glow Hat and is by knitwear designer “Bunnymuff”, who is Mona Zillah.

A link to the pattern page is at the bottom of this page.

The yarn I am using is Jamieson & Smith 2-ply Shetland wool combined with some Rauma. Mona (the designer) uses gorgeous Gathered Sheep Yarn. I would buy it in an instant if it was available in the US. If you are in the UK, check it out. But, the J&S is also very lovely, with some wonderful coloring.

Yarn: FC14, dark rainbow mix purple is the color I used for the chickens. I don’t leave my yarn in the sun, just used this sunny spot to show colors better.

This is my first hand-knit project for 2022. I did my cast-on January first. When I saw this cute hat pattern a while ago, I knew I had to make it one day for my daughter. Anyone who raises backyard chickens would just love it!

The pattern includes more than just chickens. Geese and pigs charts are included with this pattern. They could all be included on one hat – perfect for farmers..!

Finished Knitting

I’ve finished knitting the hat, but it’s not done. I still need to add the duplicate stitches on the chicken motif and weave in all those ends. Colorwork is such fun and all the yarn ends, from changing colors, are just part of it. Once it’s washed and blocked the puckers will come out and the hat will be smoother.

The chicken motif is meant to be enhanced with embroidery, called duplicate stitch.

The pattern designer explains how she used this technique to finish each of the animal motifs, so you are not left in the dark wondering where to begin. This Very Pink Knits video shows how to do duplicate stitch at about six minutes in.

Hat is Done… Duplicate Stitch, Washed and Dried

Altogether, the hat knitting was completed in nine days. It fits me fine, but might be a little big for my daughter.

Final Words on the Solstice Glow Hat

After knitting the chicken chart section I went a bit off pattern and added some other colorwork patterns of my own. I found it difficult to follow the yarn color placement because my pattern printout is in black and white. The hat calls for a Main Color yarn and five contrast colors.

I chose to do my own thing for a few rows in the center. This is not anything against the pattern. I love Bunnymuff patterns and have already knit a few.

The Stellar Parallax Mitts were great fun (learned a new corrugated rib). The Keramos Cowl had some embroidery (a first for me). It seems I always learn something new when I knit one of her patterns.

pair of colorwork Fair Isle fingerless mitts

Keramos cowl colorwork pattern lined embroidery

More Patterns by Bunnymuff

This designer includes wonderful directions in her patterns. If you like this type of knitting be sure to check out Mona Zillah’s Ravelry Store where all her pattern designs are on display for sale.

This chicken motif hat will be sent to my daughter in New Hampshire. She is building a coop and hopes to begin raising backyard chickens sometime this year. I think she will love it!

Click here to Get The Solstice Glow Hat Pattern

Backyard chickens, hens as pets — Photo credit: Pavlofox @ Pixabay

Chicken Duty For Thanksgiving

chickens in a coop — How I Spend Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to all. Just a quick note today before I attempt to cook my turkey, to wish all my faithful readers a happy turkey day!!

It’s 6:30am and in about a half hour I will go to my neighbor’s house and release their chickens from the coop. The cute chicks have grown and there are a lot of them! Then tonight at about 4:30 (it gets dark so early now) I will go back and close the door on their coop and hook up the electric fence so the bears and coyotes won’t have a feast. The chickens go in on their own when it’s dark.

I’ll do that all weekend while my neighbors are away because they have places to go and people to see, whereas I don’t. It’s pretty much like that for all holidays. I spend it taking care of their chickens, which I don’t mind now that the rooster is gone. (He’s in their freezer I’m told).

I almost had to quit my chicken duty when the rooster insisted on trying to slash me with his talons. You wouldn’t think that a “bird” could be so scary, but they have sharp talons on the back of their feet and he would fly up at me and kick out his feet just because I was in his pen! Fortunately I had a bucket with me and he’d hit that instead of me, but I didn’t like that and since I get paid in fresh eggs, I figured it wasn’t worth it!

So the next thing I knew the roosters were being “harvested” – I didn’t even know there was more than one -and now it’s safe to enter the pen again.
Other than that my day will be filled with cooking and cleaning up and watching football – Go Pats! It should be a relaxing day. Enjoy!

Bears and Chickens

It’s June and yesterday a black bear was spotted twice in my neighborhood. I first saw him at the top of the hill just standing looking at me for a moment before he crossed the road and continued on his way. Then my neighbors saw a black bear- possibly the same one- in their driveway. They have chickens which is a big draw for the bears. They even have put up an electric fence to keep them out of the coop.

This year my neighbors have acquired more birds. They have baby “roasting hens” and baby turkeys (which I couldn’t get a good pic of because they were crazy!) and they have recently put them outside in pens. I think the bear got a whiff of them and decided to get himself a nice meal.