Tag Archives: Totallee Slouchee

More hats

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The major season of hat-knitting is upon us! I knit hats year-round. But from now until spring, they finally start disappearing from my finished knits stash.

This first hat is Tanya Thoman’s (of Maybea Crafted’s) excellent design, Munising. I purchased the kit from Thoman at the Tip of the Mitt Fiber Festival at the Emmet County Fairgrounds in Petoskey Michigan. What a great venue for a yarnie event. The yarn is Brown Sheep Nature Spun Sport. The kit had plenty of yarn, in each color.

Munising is near the Pictured Rock National Lakeshore. The Lake Superior shore is home to amazing sandstone cliffs. Streaks of minerals stain the face of the weather-sculpted sandstone when groundwater oozes out of cracks and trickles down the rock face. Iron (red and orange), copper (blue and green), manganese (brown and black), and limonite (white) are among the most common color-producing minerals. The cliffs near Munising inspired this hat’s design.

Pictured Rocks is an amazing feature of our “Pure Michigan.” Plan a visit if you can and be sure to include a visit to some of the many waterfalls around Munising (the city).

Munising (the hat) also has colorful swirling crown.

Shifting gears completely, next up is the popular Ravelry freebie, Ditto. It’s designed by Anne Gagnon. I’ve knit it before. This time I pinked it up with a sweet shade of 7 Veljesta by Novita.

Ditto’s crown is stunningly beautiful but easily knit.

And how could I not knit a second Ditto soon after the pink one? Ditto’s pattern name, not to mention how pretty it is, calls for a second knit. I used Sugarbush Bold, a discontinued yarn whose passing I continue to mourn.

If you’re looking for a fun quick knit that yields great results give Ditto a try. Or two tries. It’s totally worth it.

Next up is the 1898 Hat. It’s a free pattern available via Ravelry or direct from Seaman’s Church Institute’s website. The mission of the institute is provide services to the maritime community. For many decades that has included a Christmas at Sea program. The Institute’s website says the program is one of the “oldest and longest continuously-running charter knitting program in the U.S.” It delivers knitted gifts to the “thousands of professional U.S. mariners at work aboard towboats, harbor tugs, and dredges on the Mississippi River system and the Gulf Intracoastal Waterways” as well as to certain international seafarers. Maybe knit one for your ears and send another to warm a mariners’.

The 1898 Hat is Kristine Byrnes’s winning design in the Institute’s contest looking for hats with earflaps. This hat’s earflaps are the best earflaps ever–amazingly warm, double thick.

We probably can say aloud that this hat is not for the fashionistas among us. But if you’re a person with ears you should definitely considering knitting, wearing, and gifting this hat. I knit this one in Brown Sheep Lamb’s Pride worsted.

The 1898 Hat is said to be inspired by a pattern that Byrnes found in a magazine published around 1910. Demonstrating that I am an incorrigible knitpicker, I admit that I wonder why it isn’t called the 1910 Hat.

My next knit is Jo-Anne Klim’s Totalee Slouchy hat. If you’re interested in checking out my five prior knits of this hat, type misspelled Totallee into the search window and they’ll show up. Klim’s versions are very dignified. My versions tend to the wild side and this version is the wildest yet.

It’s knit in Ella Rae’s Cozy Soft Prints, a DK weight. That’s the yarn in the body of the hat. And the brim is knit in Schachenmayr Merino Extrafine 120. I’d knit a A Bunny Named Quwi in this Ella Rae yarn…

…and this Totallee Slouchy project was designed to use up the remainder. An excellent bunny, methinks, and an interesting hat.

The crown decreases work out into a very pleasing swirl. Kind of a kaleidoscope effect in this difficult-to-tame yarn.

This post has definitely gotten my knit-a-hat juices flowing. So has a few 40 degree mornings!

Doubles

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A major stash-down is underway. That means getting reintroduced to lots of fun wonderful yarn that’s been lolling about in my stash. It also means deleting all those wonderful yarnie emails I get–without even opening them. Ok, that’s a bit militant. But I’m going to attend a few knitting events in the next several months and my plan is to be sure there are major holes in my stash by the time I get to the marketplaces. So, I’m not feeling one bit deprived. Well, maybe one bit. Still, stash-downing is turning out to be fun.

I’m tending to knit small projects and patterns that I’ve knit before.

These first two hats are Jo Klim’s Totalee Slouchee, knit in Merino Extrafine Color 120 by Schlachenmayr. That’s a DK-weight superwash merino. Here’s a closer look:

I know. Not everyone’s cup ‘o tea. But what one set of eyeballs sees as garish another sees as daring and colorful. These are my 4th and 5th knits of this pattern, in this yarn. And my friends and family chose all three original knits as holiday gifts. In fact, the one with the orange highlights already walked out my door as a birthday present for a friend’s head.

I enjoy that the crowns of these hats, in this yarn, create that flower or bulls-eye. I suppose that what you see might depend on whether your head prefers shooting or gardening. I don’t like either. But I do like this hat.

I had three skeins of each colorway and used up the remaining yarn with a simple freebie pattern that showcased this yarn to good effect. These next hats are Janet D. Russell’s Child’s Self-Striping Hat. The pattern name throws you a bit of a curve on the sizing. Russell’s pattern includes from an extra small to an extra large. I knit the large, figuring it would work well even for the young ones and used just under 180 yards, DK-weight.

Here’s glass head looking all cheerful, as if it hadn’t just recently reached twenty-five below at our water’s-edge weather station. And that’s real degrees, none of that wimpy wind-chill stuff.

 

Again, this yarn rewards knitters with an excellent crown. Children are the likely recipients of these hats. I decided to add a pompom to both. Yep, I know that even grown-ups can stick pompoms on the top of their heads if they want to. The pompoms ended up ringed by that nice splash of color.

Such fun.

This week, what with February 14th coming up, is a good time to show off a pair of Knitwise Design’s Young at Heart Hats.

Rather than work with traditional heart motif colors, and consistent with the stash-down underway, I knit these in pastels of Plymouth Yarn’s Worsted Merino Superwash. It works. Good yarn. Great pattern. Those slip stitch hearts are the best.

Well, maybe the little dangling heart toppers are the best.

How would we smile our way through the long cold winters without knitting?

As the weather turns…more hats

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I typically proceed through the world hatless. It takes super cold weather or knowing I’ll be out in the cold for prolonged periods before I wear a hat. But still hats are among my favorite things to knit. You only need to make one. And gauge isn’t super important because I always have access to some some head of the right size. Twenty below this winter in Michigan has even managed to improve my personal attitude toward wearing hats.

This is “Totallee Slouchee” by Jo-Anne Klim, of KBJ Designs. The pattern is available for purchase on Ravelry. The hat uses an interesting, easy, slipped-rib brim. Slouch seems to be a currently popular style and this hat slouches nicely.

My Slouchee is knit in my new favorite self-striping DK weight yarn: Merino Extrafine Color 120 by Schachenmayr Original,  I used the London Mix colorway. The yarn had no knots or color breaks in the two skeins I used. I’ve since found some knots in another colorway I used for a project, but these two skeins were perfect. One of the cool things about this yarn? The skein has a slotted band with the proper end to pull taped and easily accessible. No more yarn barf!

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This next hat is Amy van de Laar’s “Paper Planes” from her Paper Hats series. The hat features a ring of classic paper airplanes as seen from above, outlined with twisted stitches that make for nice crisp edges. Well, honestly, you have to let your imagination roam a bit to see that. Still, it’s an interesting design.

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The pattern and the entire series of origami-inspired hats are available for purchase on Ravelry. This was a fun knit. I used String Theory Caper Sock. Caper Sock is an 80% merino, 10% cashmere, 10% nylon mix that worked up beautifully in this pattern. I’d have been a tad more pleased with this toddler-sized hat if I had increased the length to the crown decreases by an inch or two.

This next one is Alicia Plummer’s “Rainy Tuesday.” The large-size version, which mine is, maintains the raindrops motif around the entire hat. It’s an appealing stylish hat. The challenges the pattern presents are all surmountable, with a bit of experience and a bit ‘o help from your Ravelry-mates.

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My Rainy Tuesday is knit in Plymouth Yarn Worsted Merino Superwash. Great yarn with excellent stitch definition.

Here’s a few more views of Plummer’s Hat.

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Rainy_Tuesday2The instruction for taming those pointy crown decreases was to block aggressively. I haven’t tried that yet, but it’s a tall order. I’m prepared to declare it a design feature.