Recently in Hats Category

I was asked to go into more detail about the "February Hat" I made. First, the picture.

Inspired by teeweewonder's baby beanie (Ravelry link), I made this hat to go with the February Baby Sweater I made. It's Elizabeth Zimmerman's sweater on two needles.

I started CO 70 stitches, which made seven lace pattern repeats. I started with four ridges of garter stitch, then switched to the gull lace pattern from the sweater. After a total of about five inches, I decreased using a vertical double decrease (sl2tog knitwise, k1, psso) within every other repeat to continue the lace in pattern as far as possible. Specifically...

Round 1: vertical double decrease in the center of every other repeat. It's on an all-knit round so that's easier to do the decreasing.

Round 2: work without decreasing. I did the regular pattern for the repeats where I hadn't decreased and k2tog yo k1 yo k2tog in the other repeats where there were only five stitches to work with.

Round 3: (all knit round) I did another set of vertical double decreases in the center of the five-stitch repeats to make them only three stitches each.

Round 4: I did the regular stitches in the big repeats and a vertical double decrease in the smaller ones to make them just one stitch each.

Round 5+: I started the same procedure in the bigger repeats, eventually getting them down to one stitch each. Then one round of k2tog to get down to half the stitches, then close up the hat.

Let me know if anything doesn't make sense or is incorrect. I hope you find this helpful!

Last Wednesday I hadn't made much progress on anything so there wasn't much point in a WIP Wednesday. This week I did a little bit better...

I finished Jason's Fuzzy Feet and they're ready to be felted.

I tied ribbons on the too-big-for-a-baby bunny hat.

I made progress on Jason's sweater. The yoke takes up more of the sweater than I thought it did, and the decreases come slowly, and at this point there are still 168 stitches per round, so there's a fair bit of knitting left to do.

And I finished my first ball of yarn for the Teal Belle. Only 14 more balls to go! The cables are very fun, and I'm only mildly annoyed at the popcorn stitches now that I have my pointy Options needles.

I first saw a work-in-progress Wednesday post on TurtleGirl's blog, and it seems to be a popular blog topic. So here's my first attempt. Perhaps it'll make me actually post on a regular basis, and make me take pics of WIPs instead of just FOs for Ravelry.

1. I'm nearing the finish line for Jason's Cobblestone. The best thing I did in knitting this was to start with the sleeves. Now I only have the yoke left to go!.

The Syncopated Cap continues as my second-ever stranded knitting project. The long-ish floats are cumbersome, but I think I'm leaving enough slack that the hat will block nicely. I'm through two pattern repeats, and I plan to add one or two to the four total in the pattern, since this looks really, really short.

I finally started Silver Belle. This is the start of one sleeve. I added a few rows of seed stitch at the beginning because I didn't like how it started right in to the cable pattern.

The k3tog for the popcorn stitch is annoying but doable with my new Knit Picks Options needles. You can see that the cables are already showing nicely here:

I had intended to make this bunny hat in a newborn size, but accidentally used the wrong needles (8s instead of 6s), so it probably fits a one-year-old. I'll add ribbons around the base of the ears, probably in pink.

I just finished my second February baby sweater, this time with a matching hat. The first was blogged here.

Sorry about the funny color. It's really a lovely peach. The yarn is Dale of Norway Dalegarn Falk, which is a dk weight washable wool. I got about 5.5 stitches per inch using size 3 needles, so the sweater came out at newborn to 6 month size, I'd guess. I did the hat with a few rows of garter stitch and then the gull lace pattern, and decreased using a vertical double decrease (sl2tog knitwise, k1, psso) within every other repeat to continue the lace in pattern as far as possible.

And these buttons! Aren't they wonderful? They're from Buttons and Bows, a little shop in Marin that has since gone out of business.

Over the last couple of weeks I've knitted up a number of little projects. Taking a cue from Stash and Burn, one of my favorite knitting podcasts, I worked on one skein items knit from oddball yarns in my stash. They have a contest running here, where you upload pics of finished objects. There are quite a number of images there, including these from me:

It's a generic roll brim hat (50 stitches, knit for about 7 inches, and a swirl decrease). I don't love the decreases because the k2togs happened to be at thicker points in the yarn, so I may redo that part. But I do love the colors! The yarn is Trendsetter Yosemite.

This is a generic ribbed hat I made for Julian. Please forgive the red eye.

The hat was knit from leftover Debbie Bliss Cashemerino over 84 stitches on no. 6 needles.

This is my third Bear for the Mother Bear Project, which sends bears to African children. This one used Knit Picks Swish Superwash for the green and yellow and Lion Brand WoolEase for the white. I thought the skirt was a fun addition. The others I made are here.

Lastly, I made Jamie some socks with a fabulous rainbow yarn made by Regia Ringel.

I cast on 44 stitches and used Charlene Schurch's garter rib pattern from Sensational Knitted Socks.

I also finished Poppy and am blocking it now.