Blocked, and not
You know how I'm always um, let's say 'encouraging' you to block your knits? Yeah. Here's why. This is the same pattern (Constellate, it's not out now, but the clever among you can probably guess that this little stack of goodness means it will be soon), knit in the same yarn (Seven Sisters Arts' gorgeous color wheels). Just one is blocked and one isn't (yet). The blocked one is just so much smoother and more even and more orderly, all for about 5 minutes of effort. And yeah, every single time I do something like this, I get someone piping [...]
Smitten
Aaaaand here's the rest of it. As always, I like to clip it up and try it on to check the height. I feel like brioche grows just a tiny bit more than most knit fabrics, so I'll err on the side of ever so slightly shorter if I have to, but I also like my hats awfully tall, so not too short (yeah, I know, not super helpful, sorry about that, I think you just really have to try it on and see what you like best). And the decreases are, of course, adorable. As is the finished hat! [...]
Overcome
I was overcome earlier this week. Some yarn winked at me. I found myself unable to resist. And before I knew it, there was a whole new hat in the world. This might well be my personal record holder for speed knitting. I cast on Monday night and cast off Tuesday night. It was less than 24 hours from cast on to bind off (I mean, it took it a bit longer than that to dry after I blocked it...but I'm totally saying drying time doesn't count). This is what happens when you're home alone, have a shiny new audio [...]
The fun bits
The ribbing is never my favorite bit. In fact, the ribbing is the bit I sternly make myself do because I know I will like wearing the finished thing better as a result. But really...my heart is in it for the swirly middle bits. Though to be fair, I was rather pleased with myself for being comfy enough with brioche to reach the 'yup, ready to be done with the ribbing' stage right on schedule. I'm pretty sure you can't be both bored and scared at the same time, so if I got to bored, then I'm well past scared, [...]
Pretty much like that
So after that 'let's go straight for a nice long time...no...longer than you think' part, then comes the 'aaaaaaand three rows and you're done' bit. At least that's how my hats tend to work. I'm a tremendous fan of a quick decrease on hats. It actually means you're knitting a bit more fabric (because you have to make the straight part a bit taller before you start the decreases), but I feel like it fits better and it doesn't give me hat hair. Plus it lets you do all sorts of delightfully dramatic stuff on the top. This one is [...]
Remiss
Yeah, so somehow I've been distracted and not shown you as much of this as I should have. Which is a shame, as it's lovely. But it does pretty much do that thing all hats do in the middle where you can just sort of assume 'and then it got taller for a while with no particularly notable changes.' Because well...that's how hats work. At least with this one you can distract yourself by wondering if the color is changing yet (hint, yes, yes it totally is). Yarns are Malabrigo Rios in Natural and Friea Handpaint Sport in Flare. If [...]
Bespeckle (plus giveaway)
Bespeckle is up on ravelry, there's yarn to give away on instagram, and the pattern is 10% off for the first few days it's out with the code SPECK. This was just supposed to be about the pompoms. I had this burning need to put all the stuff I find myself saying about pompoms (how to get them really full and round, how to make them detachable, how to add stripes or polkadots, what tools I like) down in one place. So I figured fine, I'll embrace the delightful ridiculousness that is my life and do just that. But then [...]
And now we start actually knitting
So, after all those swatches, it's time to actually knit the thing! I'm doing a rolled brim (in part because I like how it looks and fits, but also in part because I want to get to the color change bit as quickly as I can, and plowing through a solid brim in the colorful yarn lets me get there quick). And I generally cast on over two needles (not to make the cast on stretchier, it doesn't do that, but it does make the loops of my first row of stitches a better match for the rest of my [...]
Tip top
So this is done... And it's unquestionably adorable. Like that's totally a good looking hat, no doubt about it. But wait till you see the top. I mean that's just pretty much magic! I'm not even going to pretend to say anything modest or self effacing. That's grand, I love it, and it makes me gloriously happy! [pextestim pex_attr_set="looking-for-this-pattern" pex_attr_autoplay="false"][/pextestim]
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