More hats

Hats are among my favorite knitting projects. There are lots of heads out there. And unlike hands and feet, each person has only one head. There is no threat of second hat syndrome. There is no reason to knit the same hat for a second time though, honestly, I often do.

Maria Socha is one of my favorite hat designers. This one is her Wiatrak design. She says it’s a “simple hat with a swirly crown.” Online translation aids say that wiatrak means windmill. Check out the crown to see how apt the name is.

Wiatrak calls for Aran weight yarn. I knit mine in Copper Corgi Fiber Studios Jones Street Worsted in the Dubonnet colorway. The yarn is a hefty worsted weight in a luxury blend of 60% merino, 30% alpaca, 10% silk. The unusual ribbing, (knit through the back loop, purl 1) 3 times, purl 3 across the round, turned out a tad limp. I’m thinking the alpaca is the culprit. But once the hat is on a head all that disappears.

Next up is another Maria Socha design, Autumn Lady. I knit my version in 7 Veljesta Solid and, although I typically like this yarn, it didn’t seem to do justice to this fine pattern.

I’ve worked with this yarn before and never found it limp or even a bit thick ‘n thin. But that’s what this white shade is. The pattern puts some stress on the yarn at points where the direction of the knitting veers. And inserting a bobble into stockinette does too, at least in my knitting. The result is some small holes in the work that I’m not happy about. But I think that’s only a problem because my yarn wasn’t “full” enough. Plus the white color seems to make the holes more prominent. After machine washing and drying the yarn fluffed enough to smooth out the work a good deal.

I decided not to add a pompom because I love the crown decreases and didn’t want to cover them at all.

At some point I will knit this again in a nice plump wool worsted and I know I’ll be happier with the final product.

It’s a stunning design!

This is a rather extreme slouchy by Susan B. Anderson, Baker’s Hat. Each time I knit a fingering weight hat I promise myself I’ll make them more often. Obviously they take much longer to knit than heavier weights. But the results are often excellent. And some of the heads in my neck of the woods prefer a lightweight hat. I knit my version in Louet’s 100% merino Gems Fingering Weight.

My ideal cup ‘o slouch is not quite so full. The hat was planned for my son but I know it’s too slouchy for his taste. My stitch gauge was correct though the row gauge was off a tad. I didn’t fully appreciate how stern a master row gauge would prove to be. By the end of the twisted rib stitches, I was already 8 inches from the cast on (rather than 7.5). I eliminated the extra rounds (5 for my size) before the decreases. But you simply can’t stop the length from being what it will be without sacrificing the twisted rib sections that are the main design detail.

I needed to wet-block this hat to even out the stockinette stitches and tame the bit of ruffle that formed just after the ribbing as the hat moves into its stockinette section.

The crown decreases worked out well.

Melinda Vermeer’s Bayfront Cap is a favorite fingering weight hat pattern. The knit 3 purl 3 beginning rib flows nicely into the knit 9 purl 3 in the body of the hat. A knitter can’t help but be drawn into the pleasing somewhat unusual rhythm.

I knit this version of Bayfront cap, um…I’ve now knit 10, mostly in Louett Gems left over from my Baker’s Hat. I didn’t have enough Gems so I reached into my fingering weight oddments bag to add some striping.

The star of Bayfront, striped or not, is its beautiful crown decreases. There’s enough stitches in this fingering weight hat to allow Vermeer to create a jaw-dropping crown.

Now, back to Maria Socha for her Rioska hat. I knit mine in a beautiful (cross that out) autumnal (cross that out) camouflage shade (maybe) of Sugar Bush Bold. Before Bold was discontinued this colorway was Melon Melody. My excuse? I love Sugar Bush Bold. It’s 100% merino superwash worsted. I can’t buy it anymore. And I found this colorway online and on sale. I clearly needed a pattern with enough going on that it stood a chance of taming this unruly colorway. Rioska is a great pattern, including for its taming ability.

I already found a head attached to a very classy lady who chose this hat, from many available ones in my gift stash, because she sincerely liked it.

All Socha’s crown decreases are planned well and look great.

I don’t want to slander Rioska with my crazy camo colorway. Here’s how it looks in a calmer skein of Sugar Bush Bold, Rose Garden. The mock cable is worked with a yarn over. It’s a fun stitch to knit. Think of Rioska if you’ve got an unruly colorway.

And it’s drop dead gorgeous in Malabrigo Rios, as the pattern and project photos on Ravelry show clearly.

Second chances

This is my Swarf, half scarf half cowl. It’s an interesting Cecelia Compochiaro design included in Modern Daily Knitters Field Guide#19.  A lot of knitters–possibly recalling the “dickies” of yesteryear–have enjoyed the knitting and the wearing of Swarf. Swarf is sort of a dickie on steroids.

Swarf was my first formal venture into marling, the technique where a knitter combines two strands of different colors that evolve in sequence as the garment evolves.

That’s ribbing on Swarf’s back including where it looks like a mixture of Kraft Spaghettios and Kraft Macaroni. Compochiaro gives lots of hints about how to decide what colors will look good marled together. I guess I fell asleep during that part. That dark gray and yellow wasn’t helping out the overall look either.

I was disappointed. My beautiful Camp Colors Fingering Weight yarn set had turned into a mess. More of a Scowl (half scarf half cowl) than a Swarf.

Before:

After:

Except for the Spagettios section, it didn’t look too bad worn. But the wearing of Swarf was a pain. I had a lot of trouble getting the back to lay flat and unruffled and to stay that way. I’m sure the rounding of my upper back wasn’t helping. It also moved around some in the front. And anyway, I was mourning for my beautiful yarn and those deep saturated colors.

Time to frog. Even though the yarn spent only a few days in my Swarf, it was tightly kinked. I was defeated by the thought of soaking the yarn to relax the kinks and daunted by the thought of drying it. Ernestine, one of my guildmates, suggested that I wind the yarn onto my swift, tie it in a few places, and steam it. That turned out to be an excellent idea. It didn’t release every stinkin’ kink, mostly because I was concerned that too much steam might damage the yarn. But the technique worked really well. I could watch the yarn relax as I steamed.

My yarn was ready for its second chance. Samantha West’s excellent freebie, Diagonal Lines Hat, looked like a good candidate.

Pretty nifty. And a fun knit. The diagonal lines section is easy peasy stranded work, with no long floats to catch. The only modification I made was in the ribbing section. I separated the ribbed stripes by one round of all knitted stitches. That eliminated those half-one-color-half-the -other purl stitches and kept the stripes crisply defined.

Nicely behaved crown decreases. No pointy hat syndrome.

While knitting Diagonal Lines, I discovered that the almost-black dark gray was bleeding like crazy. It dyed my stitch markers and my white Bryspun needles. And my hands and fingers, of course. Unfortunate. I decided to steam the hat rather than do a wet block. Dollars to donuts the dark dye will bleed all over the other colors at the first washing. “Color Catcher” will hopefully come to the rescue.

I’ll need to not give this hat to Steve. Sweating might make it look like he’s tattooed a skullcap on his bald head. With that, I decided that my 50 grams of black (yet unused) and the remaining dark gray would be relegated to my stash for sewing facial feature on stuffies.

The remaining colors, light gray, medium gray, yellow, and burnt orange, were still looking to claim their second chance.

Next up is another Samantha West freebie: A Little Alien Hat.

Steve is my test for whether non-knitters will be able to make out a knitted motif. He earned that role after I asked him whether he could see what picture was knitted (at a very tight gauge) into a hat. He looked and said he saw skeletons dancing on gravestones. It was actually a castle with pennants flying from turrets. Steve looked at my completed hat and quickly said it was the Roswell Alien.

Success!

I added stripes to the ribbing and changed colors about an inch before the crown decreases started just because, well, because I had lots of colors. I planned to knit the aliens in yellow rather than burnt orange but there wasn’t enough contrast between the yellow and the gray to make the motif pop. I added one extra round of salt ‘n pepper bands to frame the alien section. I also shortened the hat to eliminate the folded ribbing, starting the crown decreases 6.5 inches from the cast-on edge (as in Diagonal Lines).

West uses the same crown decreases here as in Diagonal Lines.

I had smallish amounts of yellow and orange left in my Camp Colors’ stash and the medium gray. I’ve knit Melinda Vermeer’s Bayfront Cap nine times before and thought it would be a good choice for the yarn.

Bayfront didn’t disappoint. At first it just looks like an interesting take on a ribbed hat, with 3 by 3 ribbing that widens out to 3 by 9 in the body of the hat. Then you get to the crown decrease section.

Gulp. Every time I knit this very organic-looking crown I’m reminded again about how much I love to knit hats.

Knitting comfort food

I believe it’s true that most long-term knitters have certain patterns they return to over and over. You just know that you’ll be satisfied when you cast off. You know it will fit. You know there aren’t any errors in the pattern. You can put your knitting brain into gear and just cruise.

Wonderful Wallaby by Carol A. Anderson of Cottage Creations is a pattern like that. Comfort food. This pattern is so retro that you won’t find it available for download anywhere. Head to your local yarn shop. Or buy it direct from Cottage Creations and they will m-a-i-l it to you. Yes, mail as in an envelope with a stamp. That still works!

I knit this one in Plymouth Encore. Easy-care works better for the young ones. I’m a big fan of the garter stitch hood. And I love the kangaroo pouch. Everyone can use a sweatshirt. My pattern booklet includes sizes for a two year old to the very portly. It looks like the newer booklets include one for kid sizes 2-12 and another for adults.

Bayfront Cap by Melinda VerMeer is more comfort food for me. I’ve knit at least six in the last few years. This yarn has some issues with thick and thin that didn’t quite do the pattern justice. As you can see, you knit miles of ribbing. And about when you are beginning to think maybe this is a tad too much ribbing,

…you get to this beautiful crown decrease. So pretty. So well thought out. So not suffering from PHS (Pointy Hat Syndrome.) Bayfront Cap is a wonderful knit.

Here’s another knitting recipe that always works up right: Katharina Nopp’s Wurm.

Mine is knit in Stonedge Fiber Mills Crazy. Crazy is basically a DK weight that’s constructed of a number of colorways. No knots, just spun together. No two skeins are the same.

I call this my Earth Wurm. Wurm is a yarn eater.  I always need more than the 175 yards of sportweight the pattern calls for. I guess I like extravagantly slouchy Wurms.

And then there’s what some now apparently call the Dairy Queen Hat. But it’s no Dairy Queen Hat. It’s Elizabeth Zimmermann’s Snail Hat. I’ve knit mine in exactly what the pattern calls for: Sheepsdown, sold by Schoolhouse Press.

I use size 10 needles. And I’ve made several over the years. You need to be very brave (or very cold) to wear the snail hat.

I very much enjoy knitting it. Just because no one eats the jello salad anymore–you know the one, with all the colorful layers–doesn’t mean you don’t make it anyway. (I still sort of like that salad, by the way.)

Knitting hats when it’s too hot to wear them

shilling2

I knit warm hats year round. It’s never too warm to try one on. And it’s not like the knitting needs to rest on your lap.

This is Shilling, Chris Terramane’s contribution to the free pattern library. Shilling is available on Ravelry and on Terramane’s Simply Savvy blog. The pattern alternates garter stitch and stockinette squares and columns of what the designer aptly calls “purl-sandwiched” cables.

The directions include a variety of sizes, both child and adult. Directions are given for knitting flat (but don’t do that–why deal with the seam) and in the round.  The chart is super-sized and very easy to read. Wonderful!

My Schilling is knit in Plymouth Yarn Galway Worsted. Here’s a view of the top decreases.

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This next hat is yet another version of Melinda VerMeer’s great pattern, Bayfront. It’s knit here in  Saki, by Prism, a wonderfully springy 75% merino 25% nylon fingering weight.

prizm_bayfront

I modify the pattern to lengthen the hat and create a folded brim. Whether you knit the original version or add the folded section to warm up the ears in your vicinity, this is one great pattern. I’ve knit Bayfront six times now. The star of this knit is the top decreases.

prism_bayfront3

Bayfront is available in VerMeer’s Ravelry store.

Another fav is Stephen West’s Windschief. This is also a multiple knit for me. This time I knit it in Cascade Yarns Alpaca Lana D’Oro, a 50% alpaca 50% wool worsted weight. It’s a tad hairy for my taste, but it’s still very soft and not a bit scratchy.

brown_windschiefhat

My glass head doesn’t wear this hat very well because, time for a confession, I ran out of yarn and ended up abbreviating the length. So this Windschief is child-sized. I’ve knit Windchief as a hat before. But it’s also a seriously great close-fitting cowl. You just stop before the crown decreases and bind-off “early.”

It’s been much warmer lately in Michigan. So, for this twisted knitter, it’s time to knit hats.

Melinda VerMeer’s Bayfront Cap

bayfrontMany knitters have favorite patterns that they knit many times over. For me, those patterns are often hats. Melinda VerMeer’s Bayfront Cap, available for download on Ravelry at the very reasonable price of $2.99, is so far the only sockweight yarn hat that keeps me coming back for “just one more.”

I like to knit it extra long, so that it can be cuffed over the ears. But it’s wonderful without the cuff as well. Here it is knitted in Lorna’s Laces Solemate, an interesting yarn of 55% superwash merino wool, 15% nylon, and 30% of some Rayon concoction that goes by the trade name “Outlast.” Outlast is supposed to “interact with the body’s microclimate to moderate temperature from being too hot or too cold.” I’m not sure about that. But the yarn has a nice soft bounce to it.

The very best part of Bayfront is this knock-your-socks off crown section:

bayfront2

Here are various versions I’ve knit in recent years. Click on the thumbnails to get a more clear view.

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