Think fall…and hats

For those who follow my blog you are forgiven for thinking, “Yawn. That knitter is knitting the Thinker hat again.” I am. I definitely am. This hat is wonderful one. It fits well. It’s fun to knit. It’s a quick knit. The Thinker is a fits-all-head-sizes great hat! Check out The Thinker by Susan Villas Lewis. For $6 US you’ll have a hat pattern that works from newborn to extra large adult.

This is the (ahem) 12th time I’ve knit The Thinker. And I’m thinking about knitting it again soon!

This time I used a wonderful but sadly discontinued yarn by Sugar Bush Yarns: Bold. It was an excellent superwash merino worsted and I was disappointed to see it bite the dust. That’s true even though I managed to snag a boatload of skeins at a great price at WEBS a good while back.

I make a few modifications in the pattern to make it even more perfect (to my way of thinking). I knit the ribbing on US 5’s and the body on 7’s instead of knitting the entire hat in the same needle size. And after the ribbing I knit one round plain before starting the body of the hat. I also knit one round before starting the second section of ribbing, after the main body of the hat. Those extra rounds create an attractive transitional “furrow” that I like. Totally knitter’s choice on that. The largest size ends after half a section of the garter stitch, after what amounts to a round 9. I knit a round 10 before transitioning into the ribbing.

Even a super organized crown decrease!

Next up is Christine Kelly’s Mutze, actually it’s Mutze with an umlaut above the “u.” But this keyboard dummy can’t figure out how to type an umlaut so umlautless Mutze will have to do. I knit my Mutze in Berroco Lanas, a wool worsted.

My only modification was to work the crown decreases only until I got the stitch count down to 12. I feared that following the pattern exactly with a final set of decreases would result in the dreaded pointy-hat-syndrome. ‘Tis a condition to be avoided at all costs in my knitting world. Heads don’t come to a point and hats shouldn’t either, in my view. Well, except baby hats. We can put babies’ heads in any kind of silly hat we want to. They do not care.

Mutze is a good no-nonsense hat, akin to a number of hats with this same basic construction: alternating reverse stockinette ridges with ribbing of some sort. It’s an excellent addition to the catalog.

PentaCap is next: a freebie by the very talented hat designer, Wooly Wormhead. OK. Probably her mom didn’t name her Wooly and her birth certificate doesn’t say her surname is Wormhead. But she goes to great lengths to keep her “real” name to herself. She goes by Wooly. And she also says that she just made up the name “Ruth Patterson” when the NY Times interviewed her on businesses like hers reacting to Brexit by shifting their companies to Estonia, though apparently just in the digital world.

I’m digressing. Nothing new in that. PentaCap is a typical Wormhead creation. Strong structural elements. Lots of great techniques to learn. I knit mine in Plymouth Yarn Worsted Merino Superwash Solid. It’s a tad pricey. But there’s a lot of bang for the buck. And when someone throws the hat in the washer and then in the dryer all will be well.

I used the suggested crochet cast-on. You work it just like a provisional crochet cast-on except that instead of working with a contrasting yarn, you work with the main color. And you don’t unravel it to work in the “other” direction. You simply enjoy the stretchiness and how nicely it frames the hat.

At the end of the garter stitch section comes a “bind off braid.” That’s what creates the interesting raised ridge before the stockinette section begins. For me it’s a new tool for the toolbox. Here’s the link to the designer’s tutorial on how to work a “bind-off braid.”

And PentaCap has a nice swirly, well-behaved crown.

It’s warm here in Michigan. Not Phoenix or Miami warm. Breathing in deeply doesn’t sear your lungs. And if you stumble to the sidewalk you won’t end up in the burn unit. (That weather is nothing to joke about and I won’t.)

But, anyway, it’s warm for here. These are the dog days of summer, after all: 20 days before and 20 days after the dog star Sirius rises and falls in conjunction with the sun. In case you don’t have your star charts handy, that’s from about July 3rd to about August 11th. I always enjoy knitting hats during the dog days. Hats are small projects. They don’t create a lot of heat in your lap. So consider knitting a hat! Pretty soon heads in your neck of the woods will be needing them.

Dolls

This is Birch Doll, a totally cool creation by Courtney Spainhower. Spainhower says that “sweet, shy, willowy Birch is an artistic soul who prefers sitting quietly with his thoughts under blue skies.” I find him to be totally sweet. Those long limbs, so crucial to his look, are a tad fiddly to knit and stuff. But the overall effect is totally worth it. And the embroidered belly button? The perfect touch.

Birch Doll used to be a freebie available on Ravelry. It isn’t available anymore. So that’s the bad news. Check your Rav library because when it was first released quite a few Ravelers, including me, added it to our libraries or downloaded it. I can’t make the pattern available to you but if you’re an experienced toy maker I’m thinking you could reengineer it. I wasn’t able to find the pattern on the Wayback Machine–just the image. If you find the pattern there, please leave me a comment and I’ll add it to this post.

Birch Boy poses in a variety of endearing seemingly thoughtful ways.

I knit Birch Boy in Brown Sheep Lamb’s Pride Worsted. My only modification was to sew the arms onto the torso rather than button them in place. If a small child plays with Birch Boy I didn’t want to risk the buttons coming loose. But, for now, he’s on duty pondering the meaning of the universe perched in a prominent place in my new knitting room.

Birch Boy’s a little overwhelmed by all the company, preferring to keep his own counsel. In particular, Jutta (the bigger doll with the dreads) is bothering him because she keeps asking if he has alopecia or just shaved his head. Jutta can be a little snot, by the way.

Next up is…a purse?

Yep, until you open the drawstrings and fold down the picot-edged top to the bottom of the bag.

What little kid wouldn’t think this is just the cat’s meow?

It’s Frankie Brown’s freebie: Cradle Bag. I knit mine in Sandnes Garn Double Sunday, a merino DK-weight yarn. First time I’ve used it and I was impressed.

Brown’s pattern includes the cradle bag and a combo sleeping sack/pillow that fits perfectly inside the bag. It’s designed for a 5-inch baby doll. My only modification was to tighten up the gauge with a somewhat beefy DK yarn to stiffen the cradle some. I knit on size 3 US needles. Many who’ve knit this have made the same modification.

I’ve knit Cradle Bag once before and blogged about it here back in 2020. That bag was for my granddaughter and I made many of the clothes that Brown has designed for 5-inch dolls. The clothes, knit in fingering weight, make a wonderful addition to Cradle Bag if you’ve enough time to devote to the project.

Slug fest

Just a quickee post today. Aren’t these guys a hoot?

Slugs, knit in oddments of Noro Silk Garden, with Brown Sheep Lamb’s Pride lips and eyeballs.

A great little pattern: Garden Slug by Ravelry’s Cheezombie. Her Etsy shop says she specializes in knit and crochet patterns “of the silly kind.”

This is a ridiculously quick knit. The only bit of a pain is that you need to weight the slug’s nether parts otherwise he falls forward on his eyeballs. I didn’t have any poly-beads available so I used some extra metal pieces left from an IKEA build. The metal bits make these not fit for small humans. But that’s not all that bad.

The slugs are a perfect gift for a gardener.

Alan my friendly crocodile

This is Alan. Ngoc Vu says that Alan is my friendly crocodile. Ngoc Vu lives in Ho Chi Minh (Ngoc Vu, not Alan) and she is the first Vietnamese knit designer whose patterns I’ve knit. Her English version Alan pattern is clearly written and free of errors. It’s extremely detailed and very long–28 pages–with gobs of great photo illustrations. Good golly, Miss Molly, it’s worth the read (and the knitting time)!

I typically prefer to work from paper patterns. I know, so old school. This time I decided to save some trees and print only about half the pages. When I needed help from the photos, I checked out the full pattern on my desktop or IPad.

I knit Alan in Plymouth Yarns DK Merino Superwash. It worked up very nicely in this pattern.

One of Alan’s excellent features is how his beefy tail keeps him balanced on his feet. It functions like a kickstand on a bike.

Alan, in all his 28-page glory, is totally worth the considerable time required to knit him. But brace yourself for a major sewing project when your knitting’s complete. Some of his parts could easily be knit in the round. Instead, I followed the pattern exactly on this my first knit. Well, except…after knitting Alan’s black sunglasses, I decided I didn’t want those totally cute cupcake-shaped croc eyes obscured by a pair of shades.

Ngoc Vu has a wonderful and very distinctive set of knit toy patterns available on Ravelry. Check them out here. Alan was my first knit from her collection. I’m especially taken with her Wild Bunny Amie and Angry Cat Labby.

Critter Knit puppets

Yep. The knitted toys continue. Today it’s puppets. My entire set is designed by Karen Dimeler-Laurence. Check out “Critter Mitts” in her Toy Box eBook available at KnitPicks. If you link through via Ravelry you can also check out other versions of these puppets. Mine are all knit in Brown Sheep Lamb’s Pride worsted. The bright colors really sing in these puppets.

First up: Triceratops. Three horns. Great top display. Excellent mouth. He’ll be shouting all sorts of scary stuff in no time at all.

I decided to knit this entire set with safety eyes. My embroidery skills are minimal. And the eyes looked quite spiffy when I first tried them on for size. One caveat though: the stems of the safety eyes are pretty scratchy rubbing against the top of the hand. So it’s not impossible that these critters might actually draw blood if someone jams their hand into the puppet too aggressively. Embroidering the eyes would be better for the youngest of puppeteers in your clan.

Here’s Tyrannosaurus Rex, of course. Quite a set of choppers. But my favorite part is probably the effect created by his silly little…well, arms.

My only modification to T-Rex was to add a row of garter stitch to the teeth, after the cast-on, before beginning the picot bind-off. I felt it would give his teeth more heft.

Next up: Sea Monster.

Again, I added that extra row of garter stitch–this time to the monster’s side frills. And nice super-big eyes, just because.

You’ve probably already noticed that these puppets are really one basic pattern. Up to the spot in the pattern where you put stitches on a holder to create the mouth hole, you’re just knitting a mitten. Same for after the mouth hole. Instead of knitting a thumb, you continue with the bottom of the mouth in the skin color. Then you knit a mouth patch that you’ll later sew in place. The different critters are achieved by knitting different embellishments.

Knitting that loop stitch mane was the high point of working on the Lion.

The patterns tell you, carefully, where to place the facial features.

I’m already thinking about how I will display my puppets in my new craft room. The Campbell’s Soup can I used for their porch pedestal photos actually worked fairly well though. In addition to these four critters, the pattern provides instructions for a platypus and a zebra.

I knit this set once before back in 2016. Such fun!

You probably noticed the anglerfish I improvised in my earlier set. My grandson liked anglerfish. Here’s a closer look at him. (The Anglerfish, not Isaac.)

I have a strong “blind follower” streak in my knitting most times. This pattern invites improvising.