Tag Archives: Sarah Young

Imagine Knit

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Sometimes yarn surprises. At least I think so. The pattern I knit this up in is Michele, by Sarah Punderson. Free on Ravelry. Looking at the pattern photos, you see a dignified, low key, beautiful DK weight slouchy hat.

A guildmate of mine mentioned that when she saw my yarn choice for our knit-a-long, she thought I must have screws loose. Well, no. She was actually very polite about it and said something like that she’d plan to watch with interest. And, no doubt, much skepticism.

But this is one great hat. Really. It is. I’m tooting my own horn, I know, but this hat makes such a lively statement that its wearer and everyone around will put on their happy face. And how can you not love that bulls-eye crown decrease?

I know. Not everyone’s cup of tea. Our yarns start out life in our stashes like this.

And then they turn into this.

This Mountain Colors Twizzle in the Mardi Gras colorway turned into a great Rikke Hat. Rikke, designed by Sarah Young, has been knit and posted on Ravelry about 9500 times since it debuted in 2010. These yarns will pool, but tamed by the garter stitch, they work out really well. I especially like how the brim pooled differently from the body of the hat.

Sometimes you start out thinking that your wonderful skein of fingering weight Jilly, by Dream in Color, will turn out to be a shawl. And it would have made a really nice one.

But, instead, you find Martina Behm’s great one-line free pattern, Wolkig, and then your Jilly turns into something else entirely. A little silly rather than classy. Behm’s sample is a lovely pale gray. Really beautiful. But I like my version. Glass heads thinks it’s the cat’s meow.

Here’s a closer look. This pattern is worth downloading just for the fun of figuring out how the heck one round, repeated over and over, turns out like this.

I even like my Wolkig, flipped inside out.

Wolkig. It means “cloudy” in German. That is a perfect name for Behm’s gray version. Mine? I might call it something more like “cloudy with a chance of meatballs.”

“Yes, she’s knit even more hats.”

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I know. It’s summer here in Michigan. (It did finally arrive.) It’s warm. And, if you knew me better you’d know that I don’t really even wear hats very often. But I do enjoy knitting them.

This is Rikke Hat, by Sarah Young of Happy Knits. It’s a free pattern on Ravelry. Young designed it for DK, but I knit mine in Mountain Colors Twizzle, a fairly lightweight worsted. The colorway is Beartooth. It must be a bear’s tooth after the bear’s been been munching on some sun-ripened protein. Anyway, I love the colors.

The pattern calls for using a German Twisted Cast-on and refers the knitter to YouTube for the “how to” on that. I just could not get the hang of it. I ended up using a wonderfully easy cast-on from page 41 of Cap Sease’s excellent 2014 book, “Cast On, Bind Off: 211 Ways to Begin and End Your Knitting.”  She calls it Thumb Cast On and writes that it’s also called the Twisted Right Finger Half-hitch Cast On. Sease says it’s a suitable substitute for the German Twisted. It’s a nice stretchy cast-on.

Here’s a look at the top. As always, no pointiness is what I favor and this crown decrease delivers.

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Rikke sits lightly on the head and several knitters have commented that it doesn’t give its wearer a case of hat-hair. Rikee is a very popular hat on Ravelry. 8,143 knitters have completed the hat and posted it on their project page.

This next one is another very popular Rav freebie: Wurm by Katharina Nopp.12,971 Ravelers can’t be wrong. The pattern is available in German, Finnish, French, Italian and English.

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Wurm calls for a sportweight, though it’s quite forgiving if you use other weight yarn. I knit mine (this time) in sportweight “Hat Box by Mrs. Crosby.” I have no clue about that yarn name, but it’s great yarn. It’s a 5-ply, 75% merino, 15% silk, 10% cashmere. We can cut good yarn some slack on the silly name scale. I call my hat Creamsicle Wurm.

Here’s the crown.

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A bit unruly, but in a interesting way. Here’s a few other versions I’ve knit: here and here.

Kelly McClure’s Antelope Slouch Hat is another worthy entry in the free hat patterns on Ravelry. Mine is knit in Cascade 220’s freshly hatched Effects, a new superwash. I enjoyed working with it.

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Some knitters decrease the number of eyelet rows in Antelope. But I know folks who think the slouchier the better when it comes to hats. The fold-back picot brim adds a nice touch. You knit a few rounds, do a round with yarn over, knit 2 together, and knit a few rounds more. Next you knit together each live stitch in the round with one of the cast-on stitches. It’s awkward at first, but hands catch on pretty quick. When you’ve completed the maneuver, the cast-on is knitted into the working round. And that yarn-over round becomes the picot brim.

This is also not the first time I’ve knit Antelope Hat. Here’s a few more samples, including views of the crown decreases.