Thinking cool thoughts

Here are some knits from months ago that never made it into the blog. Now that we’re in the dog days of summer, and with so much of the US (and the world) struggling with heat and fire, featuring some winter knits and even a few snow scenes sounded like fun. Ok. Maybe my idea of fun isn’t as well-developed as a lot of folks.

Glass Head, gazing out at the snow scene, is decked out in The Capitol, by Hinterm Stein. It’s one of the hats in Stein’s Domes Around the World series. A lot of us were prompted to knit this hat soon after January 6, 2021. I cast on in February, after purchasing a skein of Cascade 220 Superwash in the perfect color matching my nation’s Capitol Dome.

It is a beautiful dome in the real world and January 6th was a sobering day. It proved a somewhat sobering knit.

I made a very few modifications. Even though I used a lightweight worsted instead of sportweight, my row/round gauge was off. By a lot. I repeated rounds 49 and 50 six times, adding 12 rounds. And it’s still a bit shorter than ideal. But you can only monkey around with the Capitol’s dome a smidge before it isn’t the Capitol dome anymore. The crown decreases did not add what the pattern said would be about 2 inches of height. My crown flattened quickly and added only about an inch of height.

I wrapped the stitches that form the columns in rounds 31 and 33 three times instead of two. I just wanted them to be more pronounced.

Wonderful pattern, though. I like that the written-out, round-by-round directions are set out on the same line of the corresponding round in the chart. Working from the chart, it’s nice to also have the written directions handy.

This next hat is another Chameleon, Nicky Epstein’s wonderfully versatile hat. You can wear it cuffed.

Or with a rolled brim or as a slouchy or even Robin Hood style with the brim folded deeper on one side of the hat. Here’s its crown.

This Chameleon is knit in Rowan Pure Wool Worsted. I finished it as the lake thawed and winter was moving on. This post has links to my gobs of other Chameleon versions.

Sticking to today’s theme of “Baby it’s hot outside,” here’s a polar bear. It’s Denise Powell’s Little Bear. What I especially like about this polar bear is that it’s not cute. It’s more lifelike than typical for a knitted critter. It’s got that lumbering look to its legs. And the bit of a hump in its back.

Looks a bit menacing. Not particularly snuggly.

More like the real creature.

 

Orange are the new hats

As the weather heats up again, my knitting thoughts turn to orange. Well, to warm wintry hats also, coincidentally, orange. I know, it’s goofy.

This is yet another Chameleon Hat, Nicky Epstein’s classic pattern. You’ll have to search a bit for books containing the pattern, but it’s worth the search. I knit this version in Berroco Comfort. You can wear it slouchy or you can wear it rolled.

Or you can wear it folded. For more versions, scroll through here and here and here.  It’s such a fine pattern!

And It even passes the tidy crown decrease test.

This little burnt orange beauty is Aimee Alexander’s Sleepy Sunday Hat. It’s available on Ravelry and is sized from infant to adult large. My Ravatar is modelling it here.

I love the look on infants.

Again, it’s a multiple knit for me. This one is knit in Sugar Bush Yarns Crisp, a merino DK weight yarn that I much enjoyed working with.

The orange hat parade just doesn’t want to stop. This is Antelope Slouch Hat, Kelly McClure’s Ravelry freebie with more than 500 project pages. I decided to knit mine with the picot brim. Others decide to rib the hat.

Again, this hat includes a well-behaved crown. I knit this version in Rowan’s Pure Wool Superwash Worsted. Here’s a tri-color and a navy version. Plus one more.

So, when the weather heats up, think cool thoughts and knit warm hats. That’s what I do anyway.

Comfort foods hat patterns

Sometimes knitting what you’ve knit before can be very comforting. You know a pattern works out well. You know you won’t have any difficulty interpreting instructions. Maybe you even use the same yarn as on other knits and you don’t even need to bother with a gauge swatch. In can be just what the nurse practitioner ordered (since my doctor moved to the upper peninsula).

I was confident that the freebie DRIPS hat by Bethany Hill would work out well because I’ve knit it before.  And I think the dripping paint can look is a hoot.

I knit mine in Brown Sheep Lamb’s Pride worsted and added a nice fluffy pom-pom.

Over the years since I first purchased Nicky Epstein’s 1997 book “The Knit Hat Book: 25 Hats from Basic Shapes” I’ve knit gobs of her Chameleon hats. The pattern is available now in a number of other somewhat hard-to-find publications. I treasure my copy of the book because I attended a 1997 Stitches convention and took a hat-making class from Epstein. Here’s the inscription she added to the title page of my book:

The “great hat’ she was referring to wasn’t Chameleon. It was (gulp) a pillbox style hat with big knitted flowers and leaves sewn all over it. I beg your forgiveness. But it was 23 years ago. Epstein and I both liked it. Anyway, I’ve probably knit Chameleon seven or eight times since 1997, more recently check out here and here. This current Chameleon is knit in Classic Elite Liberty Wool.

It works worn with a folded brim.

You can even wear it Robin Hood style, with the brim folded at uneven depths. And it works rolled.

It’s, it’s…a chameleon, sort of. And the crown decreases are well thought-out.

Chameleon’s definitely a knitting comfort food for me. In fact, I feel another Chameleon is likely in my very near future.

Michele by Sarah Punderson is another Ravelry freebie that’s a multiple knit for me. This time I knit it in the now-discontinued Classic Elite Chesapeake. A knitter can choose the slouch level and, in this version, I chose slightly slouchy.

Such a pretty thing. And wearing a sunny colored hat on a dull and wintry day can be a good pick-me-up.

For more of Michele, in a super-duper pick-me-up colorway, check this out.

Finally, next up is Katerina Nopp’s Wurm, one of the most popular Ravelry freebies, at 16,606 project pages by current count. Five of them are mine: Warm Wurm, Crazy Wurm, Creamsicle Wurm, Earth Wurm, and now another extravagant Crazy Wurm.

This one’s knit in Stonehedge Fiber’s Crazy, a 100% merino yarn usually described as a sport-weight. With Crazy, you get what you get–all without knots, in my experience.


Sometimes Crazy gives you a crazy surprise–like that stretch of orangey-red marl that ended up at the crown.

These are such difficult times as we live through the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic. Stay safe, please. Knit on!

More warm hats during warm-weather knitting

chameleon2

This is Chameleon. A go-to hat knit for me. I’ve knit a zillion. Probably more like half a zillion. It’s a pattern by Nicky Epstein included in the original Vogue Knitting Caps & Hats book. It was one of the early books in Vogue’s very popular pint-sized hard-cover book series. According to Ravelry, it’s also included in Donna Kooler’s Encyclopedia of Knitting and in Leisure Arts pamphlet 15914 and in Knitter’s Magazine #49, Winter 1997. I believe the first time I knit it was from Knitter’s Magazine.

I hope the reprintability of the pattern means that Epstein has raked in bucketloads of bucks from the pattern. But the way these things go, from what I’ve heard, I’m guessing that’s doubtful. The pattern is also available at Epstein’s website.

It is one good hat.

chameleon

You can wear it lots of ways. You can fold the cuff up. You can roll the “cuff.” You can even fold the cuff unevenly and pretend you’re Robin Hood. It also has a well-behaved crown decrease. For me, that’s always the sign of a well designed hat. If you gift it to someone you don’t have to immediately start explaining: “I know it looks like it comes to a point, but when you put it on your head it won’t look that way.”

I knit this one in Plymouth Yarns Worsted Merino Superwash. Here’s one in Berroco Comfort.

chameleon3

Speaking of a good hat. This next one is the Easy Hombre Slouch Hat, a free pattern on Ravelry, by Paul S. Neary. It’s a great first Fair Isle project, if you haven’t tried that technique yet.

ombreIt’s crown is also nicely behaved.

ombre2

This is true even though, off-head, it makes you wonder if you’ll look like you have ruffled brains (or a starfish hiding under your hat).

ombre4

I knit my Hombre in wickedly great yarn: Shalimar Yarns Breathless in DK weight. 75% merino, 15% cashmere, 10% silk.

Warm hats to celebrate the end of summer.

Le Cirque

I’ve just completed Nicky Epstein‘s Le Cirque Baby Afghan. I made some modifications and it’s going to be a baby playmat. Epstein has a well-deserved reputation for designing wow-factor stuff. This pattern is included in her newest book, “Knitting in Circles: 100 Circular Patterns for Sweaters, Bags, Hats, Afghans and More.” I first borrowed the book from the library and was so taken with Le Cirque that I decided to buy the book.

You start out knitting circles that Epstein calls orbits. Easy short row stuff, in an interesting textured stitch. This is Martha Stewart’s Crafts Extra Soft Wool Blend yarn, by Lion Brand. The yarn feels wonderfully soft. It’s 65% acrylic, 35% wool, so it should be easy care. It’s toss in the washer and then toss in the dryer. The color palette is mostly subdued tones, but that was perfect for what I wanted to do with this project. The yarn has lots of great qualities and only two not so great. For Lion Brand, it’s kind of expensive. And every skein had some “internal” knots where the yarn had been joined with a few teensy tufts left sticking out. I decided I could tolerate that. They simply melted into the project.

These are the larger-sized orbits:

Big_orbits

You knit 5 of the bigger size and 4 of the little ones.

All_orbits

Then you knit some figures, also basically building on circles. Here’s the elephant:

Full_elephant

And here’s my lion, with a modified mane of my own design:

Full_lion

Instead of the loopy mane Epstein designed, what I did was cast on stitches and knit one row. Then I cast on a bunch of stitches (somewhere between 6 and 11). Next, bind off those newly cast on stitches, knitting the last cast on stitch together with one of the “old” stitches. Then put that stitch back on the left needle. Cast on stitches again, bind off…repeat across the entire row. I knit several strips and sewed them in place.

Here’s clown girl:

Full_clowngirl

And her friend clown boy:

Full_clownboy

Assembly was a bit of a bear. Instead of just sewing the orbits in place, I joined them with a 3-needle bind off technique. I picked up stitches on each surface to be joined and then used the third needle to bind off. I bound off holding the wrong sides facing each other, so that the ridge that formed is on the public side of the work.

blankie_assembling

Notice the pinwheel in the center? That is exactly how it’s supposed to work out. I goofed in one way, though. I departed from Epstein’s instructions for exactly how the colors should be spaced. I didn’t think one set of my colors looked good placed next to each other, so I changed the placement of colors in two orbits. Then, when I assembled them, I found that some of my colors (check out the pink in the top left and top center orbits) were lining up next to each other. That’s not best, so if you knit Le Cirque, keep your “A” through “I” colors spaced just as Epstein instructs–unless you’re better at jigsaw puzzles than I am. Once the rest of the assembly was complete, that goof doesn’t really leap out.

Here’s the elephant in place in the playmat:circus_elephant

Here’s the lion:

circus_lion

And the two clowns:

circus_clowngirl

circus_clownboy

Here’s one half:

circu_half

And the other half:

circus_half2

Here’s the full view:

circus2

My other modifications were to stuff the lion and the elephant. I also knit backs to all four of the figures. The back patches hold the stuffing in place. All the threads fastening the small pieces are covered so that no small fingers can work them loose.

And I knitted an I-cord border rather than the crochet edge Epstein suggests. That’s my choice only because my crocheting skills are almost nonexistent.

I’m really pleased with how this turned out.