craf·te·ra·ti

My sister and her husband have come out to visit and snowboard this week. Meanwhile my sister has appropriated my red and black hat (made from KnitPicks Andean Silk). So I had to knit a hat for her. We went to Soul Spun Yarns and bought some red and black Berocco Peruvia. Peruvia is a worstedish single that is slightly heathered and very soft. I also bought brown, green and orange. At $8 for 100gms it’s a decent price.

Vanessa gave me free reign to do whatever I wanted. So last night I got about 2 inches of black done. I wanted to try my hand at some fair isle so I got out some books and looked for a pattern. I found a simple one with 2 colors and a 12 stitch repeat which was perfect for this 72 stitch hat.

This morning I started working on it and fair isle was faster than I expected. I used the 2 handed technique, and while I threw the yarn the wrong way the first row, I quickly got the rhythm. So this yarn is a little fuzzy for doing fair isle, but I still like the way it turned out.

Even more photos…this time it’s hats. I have way too many hats but they are my favorite thing to knit.

This one is made from handspun and olive green knit picks merino style

This is a basketweave hat I made from some handpainted yarn, but I totally forget what brand it is. It’s just 2 rows of knit and 2 rows of k2p2, but I wear it inside out.

Here is the finished product of twinkle tweed. I intended to put earflaps on it, but I wanted to wear it at Xgames so I crocheted the band on the bottom and Heidi made me an official pH Pom.

I finished making the Knitty Fetching wristbands last week. They are a gift for my friend’s birthday. I was originally going to use KP Andrean Silk, but it didn’t get here in time so I used the recommended Debbie Bliss Cashmerino aran. I’m glad I did; this stuff is luscious! I can’t remember the name of the color but it’s a lovely orangey red that photographs horribly.

In terms of project notes I did this using magic loop and I didn’t do the picot bind off. I gave them to Sue last night and she loved them. I bought another ball of cashmerino in blue to make some for an expecting friend and some tahki new tweed in brown to make them for myself.

Here’s how they look on so you can see the ribbing in action

One of my friends is coming to NYC to celebrate a big birthday next week so I decided to knit Knitty Fetching wristwarmers. I was going to order some Andrean Silk from Knit Picks, but with their shipping times I wasn’t sure I’d get it in time. So as you can see below, I went to yarnware.com and got some cashmerino aran.

I am a magic looper so I had to pull something off my Denise 40″ cable to get started last night. The knitting went pretty quickly once I got a rhythm for the cabling. I can’t wait for my grooved cable needles to get here!

I think I should be able to finish this one up tonight. I’m liking it in general so far and I really like the cable ribbing. I may have to make some mittens!

I recently posted about some camo yarn I had kettle dyed. Well last week I finally finished knitting the hat. It’s for my friend and he told me last night that he loves it and it fits perfectly. That’s good because he had claims of a big head, so I made it and it was huge! I had finished it when I realized was too short, even for me. So I undid the crown shaping and added an inch.

My friend didn’t even know I did they dyeing which I take as a compliment. It’s couture baby! I also did the inside band on smaller needles with a single strand, while the rest of that is on 10.5s using 2 strands of Knit Picks Andrean Silk.

I’ve decided my hats deserve real names. So may I please introduce Luella….

Luella has a ruched band that you can’t see so well in these photos. She’s made of KP’s Wool of the Andes (grey) and Lion Brand Wool Ease (green). She needs a large pompom. Luella is also not that pointy. My model’s head is just not a big as mine.

And here is a closeup of the ruching. I had originally planned to do a few rows of ruching, but it’s a lot of work and I am lazy.

I will write up the pattern…someday.

I borrowed the general pattern from the Textured Slipstitch Dishcloth and adapted it into a hat.

yarn: 2 skeins of Patons Merino Classic Wool. Hold 2 strands together throughout (I like thick hats). If you want a thinner hat you can use a single strand but see the note at the bottom for adjusting the pattern.
Color A – borders (green)
Color B – blocks (multi)

Hold 2 stands together throughout
needles: size 10.5 circulars 16” or 20” (I prefer 16”)

Note: While working the Main Pattern don’t cut your yarn when you switch colors.

Cast on 72 with A. Place a stitch marker to mark the start/end point.

Main Pattern

Round 1 & 2: knit with A.
Round 3: *k5, sl wyib* with B
Round 4: *p5, sl wyib* with B
Round 5: repeat round 4
Round 6 & 7: knit with A
Round 8: k2, sl wyib. *k5, sl1 wyb* k3 with B
Round 9: p2, sl wyib. *p5, sl wyib* p3 with B
Round 10: repeat Round 9 with B

Repeat the Main Pattern 3 times (Rounds 1 through 10). Then repeat just Round 1 through 5.

Shaping the Crown

Note: You can switch to double point needles and keep decreasing on the top. I was able to get to Round 23 on my 16” circulars.

SH Round 1: *k10, k2tog* (66 stitches)
SH Round 2: knit
SH Round 3: *k9, k2tog* (60 stitches)
SH Round 4: knit
SH Round 5: *k8, k2tog* (54 stitches)
SH Round 6: knit
SH Round 7: *k7, k2tog* (48 stitches)
SH Round 8: knit
SH Round 9: *k6, k2tog* (42 stitches)
SH Round 10: knit
SH Round 11: *k5, k2tog* (36 stitches)
SH Round 12: *k4, k2tog* (30 stitches)
SH Round 13: *k3, k2tog* (24 stitches)

…and so on if you like

Cut the yarn leaving a long tail, and thread onto a yarn needle. Thread needle through all of the loops on the knitting needles and pull tight to close the top. Sew end in.

Add a pompom if desired and sew the ends in.

MODIFYING: This is a really easy pattern to adapt to any yarn or needle size. The only thing you really need to do is figure out how many blocks there will be in each row. To do this you need to make a test swatch. Cast on 18 stitches and do 2 repeats of the Main Pattern (Rounds 1-10). Then measure how wide each block is (6 stitches). The divide that into the circumference of the hat you are making. You need to have a multiple of 6 stitches, so you may need to add or subtract a few stitches. Then you will repeat rounds 1-10 until your hat is about 5 inches high. Then start the decreases. You will have to fudge this a bit, but since we started out with a multiple of 6 stitches its should be pretty easy. Just divide your total number of stitches by 6 (N). Then start the crown shaping section replacing the k12 in SH Round 1 with kN and decreasing N for each subsequent round.

I hope this all makes sense to you! Let me know if you catch any problems with this pattern as I’m writing it after I made the hat. I would love to see photos if anyone knits one, too.

UPDATES: Thanks for pointing out some mistakes I made in this pattern. Mainly that my asterik in rounds 8 and 9 was misplaced and also that I failed to mention I double stranded my yarn. I’ve updated this in the main text.

I thought all those ballband dishcloths from Mason Dixon knitter were pretty cool but I don’t have any use for them. Since I’m always looking for new patterns for hat I decided to adapt it. I don’t have the book but the same pattern is readily available on the internet.

It was an interesting knit. I don’t love the colors. I used Patons Classic Merino in green and one of the new ombre colors. I’m a lazy knitter so I always double up my yarn for hats, but that means the colors didn’t shift as they would in a single strand. If I had to do it again I’d make it with Knit Picks Wool of the Andes Bulky and Bulky Handpainted.

So here is the hat with the superpom

here is a detail shot of the pattern

I have both Vogue Stichionary books and I love them. I bookmarked a few patterns that I’ll be using for future hats.

I have a rather perverse habit of knitting things nearly to completion that I knew I was going to frog a quarter of the way in. It’s often that I just want to see how it would turn out even though there’s something about it I hate.

So yesterday was an example of my perverse knitting. I’m working on knitting an earflap hat for a friend. I’ve done beanies but never earflaps. I don’t want to do them in garter, but I knew that stockinette would curl. So I used my google fu and came up with ….the Earflap Hat Pattern Generator!

I swatched and gauged and all that jazz and started knitting. I didn’t do the increases. Instead I cast on the final amount of stitches (post increase) and knit the inner band on size 9 needles, then switched to 10.5s on the outer part of the hat. I just got the hang of short rows on the socks I’m working on, so it was pretty easy to do the short row earflaps for this hat. It’s a clever way of doing them too. However after finishing them I knew they were too small. Yes, they were big enough to cover your ears, but they were not in proportion to the hat. But I kept knitting to see how they looked overall. Then I marked where they should be and frogged.

Then I stared over again last night. Originally it was 78 stitches – 12 for the back, 18 for each earflap and 30 in the front. I wanted it to be a bit bigger so I started with 84 stitches – 14 for the back, 26 for each earflap and 18 for the front. I just started the first earflap so I’ll have to see if that works out.

I tried really hard to resist this, but last night I started working on a pair of socks. I am currently about halfway done with knitting Temptation II, and I really shouldn’t start a new project. Except, the sweater is a commute exclusive project. So starting an at home one must be ok, right?

� I’ve never knit socks before so I did some searching for a pattern. I’m using my Dye-O-Rama Yarn from Liz. She said the stripes work well with a 60 stitch round. So when I came across Wendy’s Toe-Up Sock pattern I was all like SCORE! So I cast on and got going and 2 rows in I got confused, very confused. I’ve never really done short rows, and I knew that I had to be slipping more and knitting less, but I couldn’t understand how that works. So I searched and read and searched and read. And finally I came across this tutorial. So I basically ignored the instructions, which I think are not very clearly written for an “easy” pattern, and followed the Coffee Crazy instructions. So right now I’m done with the first toe. I just need to put my provisional cast on stitches back on the needle.