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.

Red hat days

Recently I noticed that I’ve been knitting a lot of red hats. Not that it’s been red red red all in a row. But I looked over my “knits4blog” file and found an abundance of red hats that I’d not yet featured.

This first one is the great Wooly Wormhead’s freebie, Meret, left free to be a beanie instead of a beret. That’s just a matter of not blocking it as a beret. My Meret is knit in Malabrigo Rios in the Cereza colorway. It’s a rich red with undertones of almost black. My apologies if that sounds wine-connoisseur-silly (“woody, with a hint of apricot and mushrooms”). But then lots of us are yarn connoisseurs in this robust knitting universe.

I was a smidge disappointed that the crown decreases turned out rather porous. It’s not beyond the pale though that sometimes we might need an air conditioned beanie.

Next up is yet another version of Jesie Ostermiller’s Portsmouth Beanie. This is such an excellent unisex hat pattern. This time I knit it in Anzula’s For Better or Worsted. 80% merino, 10% nylon, and 10% cashmere. This is the Watermelon colorway. I’m pretty sure it’s the 10% cashmere that keeps me reaching for this hat when I’m looking for cozy.

I’m frugal enough that I very much enjoy knitting multiples of purchased patterns. Six dollars for three hats–with likely more in the future–would please even my rubber-band-saving grandmother.

What would especially tickle Gram is that I knit this version in yarn I frogged from a prior, less successful, hat. I unraveled the hat, wound the yarn onto my swift, tied it in a few places, and then steamed it. That did an excellent job of unkinking the yarn and saved me the trouble of washing and reskeining it.

Here’s another version of Galina Shemchuk’s excellent freebie, Just a Hat. It’s a somewhat new hat pattern that’s drawn a lot of attention with 450 project pages in just a few years. There’s a lot to like about the pattern. Unisex. Very forgiving size-wise. Tidy crown decreases. And free.

 

I knit my Just a Hat in Malabrigo Rios using the Desert Rose colorway. This hat seems to look especially nice knit in a yarn, like Rios, with shading and depth to make the hat’s furrows furrow just right.

This next hat is Hill Country Hat by Clara Parks, the only bulky weight in this post. It’s part of her “Knitters’ Book of Wool” but the pattern’s been released as a freebie.

I’ve knit Hill Country (ahem) eight times and already posted this hat’s predecessors. If you search on this blog you’ll find them all and be able to see the interesting stitch choices that make this bulky-weight a standout. What makes my latest version different is my unusual yarn choice: Lana Grossa’s Fusione. If you want to give it a try in this yarn, I’ll just wish you luck because it’s discontinued. Personally, I liked its 30% cotton, 26% alpaca, 25% wool, 19% nylon mix, for some purposes anyway. Very cozy. But I didn’t like it’s-time-to-take-out-a-mortgage price. And then I bumped into a huge markdown on the stuff and I was all in. This Hill Country wiped out my stash though.

Admittedly, not the best choice if you’re looking for stitch definition. But it will keep some head totally warm.

Last up is another Maria Socha beauty: Rioska. Mine is knit in Sugar Bush Yarn’s Bold, unfortunately another discontinued yarn. It’s a worsted weight with excellent stitch definition. I’ve often knit with solid shades of Bold. This was the first time I used a variegated shade: Rose Garden. I was concerned that the mock cable details would be overwhelmed by a too busy yarn. But I’ve decided that the result is excellent.

So pretty, including Socha’s trademark well-planned crown decreases.

Hundred degree hats

This week is not the week to tuck your sweaty head into one of these hats. Weather predictions say that in a few days it will be 101 degrees Fahrenheit in our neck of the woods. And daytime high temps are supposed to be in the nineties for about ten days. We hope the four Eastern Kingbird chicks who haven’t yet fledged from the cupholder in our dock-chair in the full sun will be able to make it through.

For some reason really hot weather always makes me think of the fun of knitting wool hats. So I’m featuring some here that I’ve knit recently that haven’t made it into the blog, including Suvi Simola’s great beanie “Bobbles & Cables Cap.” Mine is knit in Sugar Bush Yarns Rapture, a 50/50 llama/merino worsted weight that is next-to-the-skin soft. This is a product of Canada, Michigan’s (mostly) to the north great neighbor. The company says that “Sugar Bush Yarn is a tribute to a Canadian inclination to embrace its northern temperament.” Right now I’m working to embrace a southern temperament and not doing too well.

This pattern is included in one of the 60 Quick Knit Books whose errata typically span many pages. You won’t get bobbles like mine following the directions in the book. Simola has put out an errata, available on Ravelry as a note on the pattern page. But I decided to knit a still beefier one: knit one, purl one, knit one, purl one into one stitch. Turn and knit four. Turn and purl four. Pass the stitches over the one closest to the tip. This is the first time I’ve used a Sugar Bush yarn and I’m really liking this one.

What? Crochet? Crochet from this notorious non-hookerr?

Nope. It’s Wooly Wormhead’s 100% knitted Waffle Slouch. I was drawn to it partly because, except for the ribbing, it was knit masquerading as crochet. At least that’s what my eyes see.

My Waffle Slouch is worked up in Fibre Company’s Cumbria, 60% merino wool, 30% masham wool, and 10% mohair. I never heard of a Masham sheep and suspected it was somehow a mashup of more than one breed. That’s what it is. A crossbreed between either a Teeswater or Wensleydale ram with a Dalesbred or Swaydale Ewe. The result is a long lustrous fiber.

As always with a Wooly Wormhead beanie or slouch, she manages a disciplined, non-pointy crown.

I had a bit of difficulty with what should have been some pretty simple lacework in this next hat. Totally user error. It’s Tracey Lambert’s free pattern: Pennyroyal. It’s a keeper for sure.

I knitted mine in Anzula’s For Better or Worsted. It’s 80% merino, 10% cashmere goat, and 10% nylon. Great yarn. Great hat. I followed Lambert’s lead and added an extravagant pompom and the light highlights in the yarn really make the pompom pom.

If you try Pennyroyal, and please do, take note of the instructions on how to slip stitches. Slip the stitches knitwise. Ask me how I know that the more common purlwise just didn’t cut it.

This next hat is another Wooly Wormhead pattern: Tebe Slouch. I knit mine in Madelintosh DK in their beautiful nighthawk colorway.

Here’s another look at Tebe:

Great hat pattern and I will make it again. But one design feature doesn’t sit too well with me. You knit the caston together with the live stitches to form the picot edge with a purl row. The ridges just after the join don’t look right to me. I think I’d make the join with a knit row next time.