This joyful little tee is one of those unputdownable projects. The simple no-hassle stranded motif keeps you knitting just one more round until way after bedtime. The fleas got to be a bit much, though. My daughter has a long torso and doesn’t like a cropped length, so there were a lot of fleas.

Why “pineapple fleas”? When knitting top down, those two-tone lice/fleas look exactly like tiny pineapples in my colors.

Had to add a fifth color, because using a darker color as MC meant the diamonds in the yoke just weren’t bright enough. Those bright-centered diamonds are the highlight of the entire piece, so I went with white for maximum brightness.

I could have used the white for the lower half, but my daughter really liked the two-tone blue, and sadly I did not have enough of the lighter blue to use it for the MC. (Edit to add: Yes, turned out I did have enough of the lighter blue, but I think it worked out fine this way!)

My row gauge was short, so I needed 5 extra rounds in the yoke. I added one more flea round followed by three plain rounds, and decided that 4 rounds would be enough after blocking.

12 repeats of the flea section below the yoke.

length: 14” from armpit to hem. I did not dry it in the dryer, so blocking caused it to grow a little in length (just under an inch).

note: the fleas are knitted at a slightly larger gauge (20 sts/4 inches) than the stranded. Probably could have gone down one needle size for them (US 5) as opposed to the true stranded part, which needed a US 6.

US3 for stockinette, US6 for stranded