Beginnings
Somehow, even after spending large chunks of Saturday and Sunday taking photos for Curls 2, I still wasn't quite done playing with yarn. So on Sunday evening, this happened. It's going to be a hat for The Boy, and it's made with one of the yarns I grabbed when we were up in Maine earlier this year. It's my first try at a fingering weight hat (normally I go thicker), and I'm a little worried I'll get bored somewhere in the middle and fall down and die. But it's a fast stitch pattern (slipped stitches always are) and knit at [...]
Zipping
So apparently this stitch is perfectly designed to keep me knitting along at a good clip. It's actually quite a bit closer to done than this picture shows, but there is this whole no daylight issue to contend with, so you're getting the picture taken in decent light instead of the one that shows how much is done. I just have to figure out if I'm happy with the way the crown decreases are working (which I fear I may have to actually block it to figure out...so that should be fun). More soon!
To and Fro
This is going to be awesome. This is going to be awesome, and it's all for me. The cable (way easier than it looks) and the yarn (Alpaca Silk by String Theory, now sadly discontinued, but there are other alpaca/silk blends out there) are vying to see which is most awesome (always a good sign). I'm going to sit back and let them duke it out.
Push and Pull
So I think I showed you finished pics of both variations of the hats, I don't think I ever showed you both together. I'm rather taken with them. I think they're a perfect example of how very tiny changes in your knitting can have surprisingly big results. These use exactly the same ribbing, exactly the same increases, and exactly the same kind of basic decreases (ssk and k2tog). But by shifting the relative positions of the increases and decreases, you get two totally different looks. One where the ribbing stays straight and a band cuts across it. And one where [...]
Brimming
I want to talk about blocking hats with brims. Now there's every chance you have already found a way to block hats with brims that you're happy with, in which case you can totally go entertain yourself elsewhere. But it took me an alarming number of tries to find something I was truly happy with, so I figure there's got to be someone else out there wondering how the heck to do this. Of course the easy option is just to block it with the brim down and cuff it when you put it on. Now I'm sure you can [...]
Told Ya
I know you were worried about the hat. I had a moment of being worried about it, too. But I was pretty darn sure it would be cute in the end. And you know what? It totally, totally is. Oh and yes, the top is cute, too (no point in doing a hat if the top isn't amusing). I'm fairly smitten! And there's just the tiniest bit of yarn left. I may try and make the shortest cuffs ever. Or I could be a normal person and call it done (or, just possibly, order more yarn...that's more likely). I haven't [...]
Stages
There are several common stages in the creation of a hat. The tricky bit is that they don't come in any particular order, so you are likely to be surprised by them, no matter how many hats you've knit. For me, there's almost always a 'this is way way too big' stage. It's often followed by a 'this is too small for any living human' stage. Popular variants on those two include 'it's too short' and 'it's too tall.' You may also encounter 'I bought way too much yarn' or 'I'm so totally going to run out of yarn' somewhere [...]
Perseverance
So I want a nice deep folded brim on this hat (skinny ones make me look like a fire hydrant, if I'm going to fold a brim, it's going to be deep). Alas, that means I have to knit about fourteen miles of ribbing. Actually, it's something closer to five inches, but it might as well be fourteen miles. I want the brim to be about two inches deep when it's on my giant melon head, which means it needs to be about five inches high on the needles (2 inches folded up, the 2 inches that covers up, plus [...]
Second verse, same as the first
Yup, yup it's gonna be a second hat. I'm intrigued by the idea of a cowl, but I don't really have enough yarn to do it the way I'd want it to be done. I do have enough to do a hat. A hat and maybe just maybe some cuffs (no promises, I'll need to sneak in and do some math when the hat is all done). For now, I'm sticking with the hat plan. And, on the off chance you hate hats and prefer socks (or even if you don't), Scatterling are coming back out tomorrow. There will be [...]
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