Okay, so I mentioned my friend with the alpaca yarn, right? And I told you about how he sent me "Baby's First Yarn" and how I wanted to make something cool and groovy with it? Well, I wove in the ends this morning on...
Baby's Progress Hat!
Here is the lovely Glenda modeling the hat. Isn't she great, folks? Glenda poses for pictures like this because I am spectacularly uncoordinated when it comes to taking snapshots of myself. As you can see, I'm lousy at photography in general, but Glenda does not complain.
The really wonderful chocolate brown shade doesn NOT come through, but you can pretend. This is a nice, basic sort of hat. It has a garter stitch band and a star top, and covers my eyebrows and ears. This is a plus when you have really stupid weather that decides to dump half a foot of snow on you the first day of spring.
Are you ready for the cool part? My favorite detail of this hat is in the back.
See that split? It's not entirely due to the fact that I'm lazy about finishing details. Since I have mass quantities of hair living in a braid on the back of my head, I have hat fit issues. Stocking caps that have to stretch over the bump at the top of my braid give me a bizarre sort of stretched-out shark head look. Unflattering, and frightening to small children. I usually try to find (or receive) hats that are slightly larger than my cranium would lead you to expect.
The split negates the shark head look and saves me from the tedious task of sewing up eight whole stitches.
Do you have a bunch of handspun? You know I always tell novice spinners to USE the yarn they make. Would you like to try making this hat? You WOULD?! Well, I'll tell you how it's done! As far as I know, this is my very own pattern that I designed on the needles, so all of the "thou shalt not stiff thy fellow knitter" rules apply. Failure to comply with the rules will result in the unleashing of the stash weasels.
With some bulky-weight handspun and size US10 1/2 dpns, cast on 8 stitches.
Work in garter stitch for 120 rows, slipping the first stitch of every row as if to purl. Bind off.
With worsted handspun and US6 straights, pick up stitches along one long side of the garter stitch band as follows: pick up one stitch in the front loop and one in the back loop of the first selvedge stitch. In the next, pick up one stitch in the front loop. Continue to pick up stitches along the selvedge, alternating in the described manner. You will end up on a "front and back" loop and have a total of 92 stitches.
Knit back across the 92 stitches.
Distribute the stitches on four US6 dpns (Yeah, you'll want a set of five for this!). Join and knit, decreasing two stitches in the forst round. Work in stockinette on 90 stitches for 27 rounds.
Decrease for the top as follows:
Round 1: *Knit 8, K2tog, repeat from * around.
Round 2: *Knit 7, K2tog, repeat from * around.
Continue in this fashion, knitting one less stitch between decreases each round until 9 stitches remain. Cut yarn and draw through remaining stitches.
Weave in ends. Wear hat. Impress friends. Accept invitations to A-List parties.
7 comments:
You can make one for me. If I did it...I am not sure I would be able to identify the shape it would be trying to assume.
Hey~
Your friend Glenda has nicer hair than me.....not fair!
You and Pete must be pleased with the outcome. The homespun hat really is lovely..a great idea for the ponytail/braid.
Thanks for sharing.
Happy knitting/creating.
Please go back and look at your directions: "cast on 8 stitches, work in garter stitch for 120 rows"
a hat that does not make!
eh, Anonymous..?
you forgot to read ALL the directions. :)
cool hat!
Anonymous, please go back and look at ALL the directions. Trust me -- in the end you do have a hat!
whats a stash weasel?
Heh! Kim, the term "stash weasel" came about in the comment section of the Yarn Harlot's blog. A fellow commenter threatened to "unleash weasels" in someone's stash as punishment for yarny misdeeds. I allowed that stash weasels would be horrific indeed, and admitted that I generally turn into one myself when someone tries to "borrow" my good yarn. :)
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