Explicate
I have a somewhat fraught relationship with what some folks call mindless knitting. I often reach for my knitting when I need a distraction from the world. If a project is too mindless, it won’t provide the necessary level of diversion. Worse yet, if it’s too mindless, I’ll get bored and never actually finish. And then the project will go to the pile of abandoned dreams in the corner and make me feel no end of guilt.
But not this time! This time I absolutely raced through what is, by any reasonable measure, fairly simple knitting. Because this time, when I was done, I knew that I was going to do something absolutely enchanting. I was going to embroider all over my knitting!
Should this have been enough motivation to push me through yet one more round of plain stockinette? Probably not. Was it? Oh very much so. Will it work for you? Every knitter is different, so I can’t make any promises, but I suspect it very well might!
Penchant
Exploring variations on a theme is my happy place. The more I look back on my earlier work, the more I see that this has always been the case. I love to find something fun, then tweak it and tweak it and tweak it, just to see what happens.
For these hats, that meant starting with a pretty little ribbing then setting to work with increases and decreases to make that ribbing wander off in a rather fetching fashion. But you see, there’s more than one way to do that. And it was too hard to pick just one, so I ended up doing two. Because once you realize you can get two different versions of a hat, each delightful and each with a different vibe, just by changing how you stack up your increases and decreases? Well it’s hard not to go ahead and do exactly that.
Restraint was never my strong suit!
And speaking of my scandalous lack of restraint, these hats are especially well suited to further adornment. When I was done knitting, I used duplicate stitch to doodle all over mine (you’ll see that in two of the pictures here).
Decorum & Comportment
Do I realize that not everyone will want to walk around with two wee pointy bits (ears? horns? who am I to say) sticking up out of the top of their heads? Oh yes, that’s why I made them optional.
Am I going to wear them sticking out and absolutely revel in any funny looks they garner from passersby? Also very much yes!
But you, should you happen to be feeling a bit more subdued, can absolutely tuck them in if you prefer. The hat is equally adorable either way.
Don’t worry, you don’t have to commit to one option or the other. You can totally pop the points in or out as the mood strikes. And, as we all know half the fun of being a knitter is having truly smashing accessory sets, you can do it while sporting the delightful matching mitts!
Correlation & Causation
Ok, let’s get this out of the way right up front. They’re reversible!
They’re reversible, and not just in the ‘looks the same on both sides’ sort of way. They look totally different (and, if I may say so, totally awesome) on both sides. Which, if I’m being honest, absolutely fills me with glee! Because how can you not like getting two totally different looks from the same piece.
For you, who are no doubt more fashionable and more organized than I am, this means you get to decide which side you like best and show that one off. For me? Well for me it means I can yank my hat or mitts out of my coat pocket and put them on on the way to the mailbox and not worry about talking to my neighbor for ten minutes with my clothes on inside out (again, this is not something that would happen to you, because you totally have your act together and would never have that problem).
And no, no before you ask it isn’t any harder to work reversible cables than it is to work regular cables. The process is exactly the same. Set some stitches aside, work some other stitches, then work the ones you set aside. It’s just, if you set the right stitches aside, you end up with something that looks like you did a magic trick when you’re done.
And who knows, maybe you did!
Expound
You know that thing where the simpler something is, the more the details matter? Well the knitting here is about as simple as it gets (it’s very nearly all stockinette in the round), but that just gives the details room to shine.
You’ll start by working a turned hem (which has quickly become my absolute favorite way to start a hat, it’s just so tidy, and it keeps your ears extra warm and cozy) in a contrast color. Then you’ll work the body in your main color, carrying one single column of contrast color stitches up the side as you go. You’ll end by working a tiny little starburst with the contrast color at the very top of the hat (which is far cuter than it has any right to be).
This actually makes for a lovely (if somewhat restrained) hat all on its own, and you could totally stop here if you wanted to. But I don’t think you will. Because once you’re done knitting, you get to adorn your hat with some absolutely delightful embroidery.
As with the knitting, the embroidery is surprisingly simple. You’ll work a few rows of backstitching to build a framework then weave a lovely little lattice between the rows. I promise the lattice is not nearly as complicated as it looks (it’s really just two steps repeated over and over). You can totally do it, even if you’ve never embroidered anything before.
Though once you start, you may find it hard to stop!
Evolve
Patrons at any level (yes, even the $3 level that costs way less than the pattern!) get this pattern for free as part of their membership.
So here’s the thing—I don’t wear shawls. Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing but respect and admiration for people who do (well, respect, admiration, and possibly just a little bit of envy). But I currently lack the requisite poise to pull them off.
But there’s something so undeniably appealing about a little bit of lacy fluff I can casually pull around myself for fortification when the weather or the world demand it. And I don’t want to deny myself that, even if I can’t quite manage the shawl version. So cowls seem like the natural way to solve this problem.
This one uses my favorite shape. It’s broad at the bottom, so it settles nicely on your shoulders, and narrows towards the top, so you’re not drowning in extra fabric up by your face. All the decreases are tucked cleverly away inside the lace pattern, which is both satisfyingly tidy and means you can stop the cowl at a couple of different points to control how tall it is.
And, at least for me, it satisfies that the secret longing that burns deep in my soul without requiring me to somehow manage to become the sort of person who can manage to wear a shawl. Perhaps it will do the same for you!
Tacit & Implicit
These shouldn’t be this enchanting. They really shouldn’t. That bit of fancy business there is just cables (easy cables at that, borderline boring cables). No really, I promise. It’s made from simple little two by two cables, lined up right next to each other and then stacked up one atop the other.
There’s absolutely no reason for it to be this charming. And yet...
I can’t explain it. Maybe it’s something to do with how orderly and tidy and logical they are? Or maybe it’s because they are cables but somehow don’t actually look like cables? Or maybe it’s just me and I am alone in finding them unspeakably endearing?
But somehow I don’t think so. I suspect you probably find them every bit as delightful as I do. Though I was so enamored of this whole project that I had to knit two different hats, which might be a tad bit excessive. It’s totally cool if you just want to make one!
Constellate
I love this more than I should probably admit. It’s absurdly simple (knit some ribbing, occasionally reach down through your fabric and pull a couple extra loops of yarn through), but it ends up looking absolutely gorgeous. It really shouldn’t be that pretty. Or at the very least, it shouldn’t be that pretty and also be that easy.
If it’s going to look that good, you should have to work for it!
And, as lovely as it is worked in one color, it somehow it gets even more delightful if you work the ribbing in one color and the loopy bits in another, which gives you all sorts of ways to play with color. Oh, and just in case that wasn’t enough, it even looks good on the wrong side of the fabric.
That’s just too much awesome for one project. It can’t possibly be fair. I’m pretty sure it breaks some sort of rule.
But, given my general fondness for awesome things that are easier than they look, I’m not going to complain. Instead I’ll knit some matching mitts (you can catch a sneak peek of them at the end, they’ll be out shortly). Because when something is this delightful, you want as much of it as you can manage!
Constellate Variation
This pattern is only available to patrons. Utter Nonsense and Rampant Nonsense patrons will be able to download the book from now through December 31, 2023.
A different version may be available elsewhere later, but it will be exclusive to patrons until then.
Restraint has never been my strong suit. When I find something I like, I want to keep playing with it until I’ve thoroughly explored all its charms. Sometimes that means I come back to earlier patterns and continue to experiment with them long after I probably should have moved on to other things. And that’s absolutely what happened here. The original Constellate is one of my very favorite patterns ever. I love pretty much everything about it. And so, it seems, do a whole bunch of you. It’s by far my most frequently knit pattern! So I suppose it shouldn’t have been too much of a surprise when I wasn’t ready to be done with it after just one version. So first I made a contrast color version, and then I made some mitts to match (you can see the original and the mitts in some of the photos here). But somehow, it still wasn’t enough. So I found myself making yet another version, this time using the same fancy stitches as in the original but stacking them up in a whole different way. It’s a perfect demonstration of just how much fun it can be to just keep playing with an idea and see where it goes! And, since my lovely patreon folks are the ones who make it possible for me spend time playing with projects like these, it seemed only fair to have this version be exclusive to them for the moment (a version of it may eventually appear elsewhere, but for now, it’s just for them). I'm so delighted they make it possible for me explore things like this. It really does make my weird little heart happy!Mailing List
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