Hats Away!
Monday, 21. January 2008, 17:30:47
I love hats. Nice and quick, with so many options. Great for experiments in color, texture and shaping. Perfect use for a small amount of yarn. And you can never have too many. But if you did have too many you could simply give them away, especially in our climate where everybody needs at least one warm hat. They make great gifts. Like these:
Hab's Hat
pattern: improvised basic 2/2 rib toque
yarn: KnitPicks Swish DK
needles: 3.75mm Bryspun 16" circular, 3.75mm dpns
Last year I decided my uncle should have a nice warm smooshy hat. He walks in the evenings and is out and about a lot. When I asked for his colour preference he first said black, but then "it should probably have red in it, and blue...". I knew we were headed straight for his favorite hockey team, the Montreal Candiens. After a little web-surfing, I came up with some stripe proprtions I liked. I was going to use Jessica's ribbed hat pattern but it seemed to be coming out too small. So I ripped it out and cast on 100 st (long tail cast on alternating 2 knit, 2 purl) and started working a 2/2 rib. I love 2/2 ribs because they are so stretchy and so compact. I added the Canadiens' stripes after enough length for a fold-up brim. I began the decreases in the purl section with a p2tog in each 20 st section, and used the same decrease every second row 'til I got to 10 st. It's a bit pointy on top, so next time I make a hat like this, I'll make the decreases in every row for the last rows. I might also put the color stripes in the fold-up part. Right now they sit pretty high on the head. Overall I'm pretty happy with it, especially the tail-weaving. It's pretty much reversible, though the top on the right side is knit, so on the inside it's purled. By the way, Harvey the pig has a rather small head so all hats look big on him.
Brother Love
pattern: Thorpe by Jessica K., adjusted for weight of yarn and ribbed edge, no earflaps.
yarn: HighTales Alpaca 3-ply, Coco % Merlin
needles: 5mm Brittanny dpns, KnitPicks 16" circular
I love the yarn, a bulky weight 3-ply from a local alpaca farmer. Coco and Merlin are the paca's the fiber came from. Merlin is young fella with the silkiest black hair imaginable. I decided to buy the blend because of the richness of the black and Coco's brown combined. It's incredibly soft and thick.
The yarn looked like aran weight inthe skein, but when I began working with it, I realized how dense it actually was and it fluffed up quite a bit. I'm expecting it will bloom some more when I wash it, which I have to do before I send it off to it's new home with my big brother.
Working from the top down was great since I wsn't sure how big I wanted the hat to be (my brother and I both got the humungo-noggin gene; I like to think it's due to our exceptionally large and superior brains
) or how far the yarn would go. I could have made a fold up brim, but this is alpaca, and thick alpaca at that. I want it to be warm, but days that require double layers of bulky alpaca only happen one or twice a year around here. I really like the hat and I think my bro will get quite a bit of use out of it.
I've got a couple more hats in the queue including a colourwork beret, if I can ever make up my mind about the colours...
Hab's Hat
pattern: improvised basic 2/2 rib toque
yarn: KnitPicks Swish DK
needles: 3.75mm Bryspun 16" circular, 3.75mm dpns
Last year I decided my uncle should have a nice warm smooshy hat. He walks in the evenings and is out and about a lot. When I asked for his colour preference he first said black, but then "it should probably have red in it, and blue...". I knew we were headed straight for his favorite hockey team, the Montreal Candiens. After a little web-surfing, I came up with some stripe proprtions I liked. I was going to use Jessica's ribbed hat pattern but it seemed to be coming out too small. So I ripped it out and cast on 100 st (long tail cast on alternating 2 knit, 2 purl) and started working a 2/2 rib. I love 2/2 ribs because they are so stretchy and so compact. I added the Canadiens' stripes after enough length for a fold-up brim. I began the decreases in the purl section with a p2tog in each 20 st section, and used the same decrease every second row 'til I got to 10 st. It's a bit pointy on top, so next time I make a hat like this, I'll make the decreases in every row for the last rows. I might also put the color stripes in the fold-up part. Right now they sit pretty high on the head. Overall I'm pretty happy with it, especially the tail-weaving. It's pretty much reversible, though the top on the right side is knit, so on the inside it's purled. By the way, Harvey the pig has a rather small head so all hats look big on him.
Brother Love
pattern: Thorpe by Jessica K., adjusted for weight of yarn and ribbed edge, no earflaps.
yarn: HighTales Alpaca 3-ply, Coco % Merlin
needles: 5mm Brittanny dpns, KnitPicks 16" circular
I love the yarn, a bulky weight 3-ply from a local alpaca farmer. Coco and Merlin are the paca's the fiber came from. Merlin is young fella with the silkiest black hair imaginable. I decided to buy the blend because of the richness of the black and Coco's brown combined. It's incredibly soft and thick.
The yarn looked like aran weight inthe skein, but when I began working with it, I realized how dense it actually was and it fluffed up quite a bit. I'm expecting it will bloom some more when I wash it, which I have to do before I send it off to it's new home with my big brother.
Working from the top down was great since I wsn't sure how big I wanted the hat to be (my brother and I both got the humungo-noggin gene; I like to think it's due to our exceptionally large and superior brains
) or how far the yarn would go. I could have made a fold up brim, but this is alpaca, and thick alpaca at that. I want it to be warm, but days that require double layers of bulky alpaca only happen one or twice a year around here. I really like the hat and I think my bro will get quite a bit of use out of it.I've got a couple more hats in the queue including a colourwork beret, if I can ever make up my mind about the colours...
WIDGETIZE