Three Turtleneck Hats

And then there were three:

Yes, I have finished the third turtleneck hat: my most ambitious. I sketched out some cables to complement the decreases and charted out a plan:

(Crude but effective.)

But when I got this far,

I decided I didn't like how the cables were stacking up. I undid numerous rows and staggered the cables instead. I ended up with:

I'm not sure it's an improvement, but it's not getting redone. The hat is done, and it is good.

Now, is it just me, or is this a beautiful shot?

Something about the angle of the chin and the play of the light. Silly, I know, to say this about a styrofoam head and yet I think it's true.

Doing it the Easy Way

So I started with this:

Three turtlenecks I bought at Goodwill (or some other used clothing outlet, I don't remember) in order to harvest the cotton they were made from. I've mentioned them before because I used them for my cotton cloth project last summer. (Wrote about it here; no, it's still not done...)

When you disassemble sweaters for yarn harvesting, you generally start at the top. First step: remove the turtleneck. Once I had the turtleneck sitting on my lap I realized I had a very good beginning of a hat.

So this Christmas I took the three "necks" with me when I went to visit family as a simple take-along projects.

Here you have the three stages:

The purple (left) is straight off the sweater. The red (center) is in the process of being knit and the blue (right) is done.

Straight off of the sweater, you have to pull on the yarn pieces until you have it raveled to the same row all the way around. (It's pretty much impossible to cut it along one row.) Then put the free stitches onto needles of an appropriate size. Then it's time to count the stitches and figure out how you're going to do the decreases.

The "default" decrease ratio is to do them 8 times on every other round. But if your stitch number doesn't divide by 8 and you have a rib pattern you want to keep intact, you may have to make something else up.

For the blue one, I did increases 10 times in a round, beginning every other row and then switching to every row because the hat needed to end more quickly.

It was done in a basic spiral pattern.

For the red, the stitch count worked better for six decreases in a round. Instead of a spiral, I did a pattern like three upside down Vs which meet at the top.

Since six stitches in a round would make the decrease section way too long, I threw in decreases in the purl sections at various points. It doesn't disturb the rib pattern at all.

The purple hat is still waiting. (It needed smaller needles than I had handy at the time.) It has a lot more stitches and I don't think the total divides evenly by eight either.

Meanwhile, I can introduce you to Suzette who is capably modeling the blue and red hats:

Yes, Suzette has a divet in her nose. Don't mention it--she's a little sensitive.

(:whisper: nose job gone bad)

Suzette was a gift from my sister who heard me saying I needed a model for my hats. It's very hard to take a picture of a hat on your own head.

Being made from turtlenecks does make the hats a little on the small size. But that's ok because hats always fit someone! When I have the third done, I'll be sending them on to the Ravelry group Caps for a Cure for people with cancer who need a little head covering. The cotton will be great--non-irritating, washable, soft, and good for indoor wear. The only drawback is that the turtlenecks have a seam in them which could be a problem. I think that is a very minor problem, however.

I can report that the blue one went very quickly and I finished it in one evening even while chattering away with various sisters and my mom. The red one took just a little longer as I was more distracted. I did have a chance one morning to sit and knit with my niece. I just found out that she started knitting.

I taught her older brother some time ago, but every time I come over he's still working on the same pair of orange slippers. This one has already finished two Barbie scarves. (Barbie has to be the inspiration for a lot of new knitters and sewers. It's how I started designing.)

All for now!
-Clickety Clack

Catching Up

Let's catch up on a few projects I've started or finished lately:

1. I started a red better plastic bag yesterday.

I am just loving the solid red colour; it's surprisingly rich and looks like it's just been soaked in dye. It looks like I'll have plenty to make at least one large tote. (Phew!) This bag has a rectangle bottom (about 4" x 12") and I'm not sure yet how tall it will get. I think I will do short "in line" handles (like the black and white book bag) instead of the longer handles I did on the other large totes.

2. I cast on for another Hat Fit for a Boyfriend. This one is for a co-worker's son who was recently deployed to Iraq. It's cold at night so I thought a soft, light-weight, Malabrigo hat would be just the thing. I should have enough of the same brown left over from the two hats I made previously.

3. I finished my Birthday Cowl. I had a few false starts but really like how it turned out. First of all, the Malabrigo colour "Snow Bird" couldn't look better! Second, it fits well and is so warm; it seems to keep a cushion of warm air around my neck--so nice!

I did modify the pattern slightly. It's a biased rib, written to slant from right to left. But doing decreases right to left means you have to do a slip stitch decrease (aka ssk) which is a) time consuming because you have to pause in your forward momentum and "back up" to slip and pass the slip stitch over; and b) not as attractive. No matter how you do it, the ssk is never as smooth or nice as a simple K2tog. But the K2tog leans left to right so you can't use it in this pattern...right?

Nope, you simply need to accept a left to right slanting bias and reverse the instructions. So sl1, k1, psso, k6, yo, k3 becomes k3, yo, K6, K2tog. Simple, right? It was, and is. And then I made one more small change: I didn't like the hole left by the YO so I just picked up the yarn from the previous row. (This is exactly equivalent except the YO makes the yarn a little longer and that's what I didn't want.) So my final pattern was k3, M1, K6, K2tog.

3. This session's Caps for a Cure:

I did the yellow in November and got the red one done during my travels and time off over Christmas. I like the Foliage pattern a lot. They will be sent to a cancer center in LA, CA. (Why do they need hats in such a warm climate?? Mostly because of A/C being set too cold! :pet peeve alert:)

You may notice I tried a little modification on the second cap at the crown. I didn't really like the heavy look of the four two-stitch "ribs" going down from the top so I tried the second cap with a one-stitch rib. Besides not really liking the look, this was also suggested by the pattern which has you decrease the extra rib stitch where they end in the pattern: if you have to take it out later anyway, why put it in in the first place?? So I took it out. I'm not sure it's a big improvement, but it was fun to try and turn my irritation into action! I also fiddled with the decreases: the pattern had a left leaning double decrease which really should have been a center double decrease. That was definitely an improvement, but I'm quite sure you won't be able to see the difference in these pictures.

4. And finally: what happened to my Candle Flame Scarf?

I got it finished in early December and it came out great. The Kitchener stitch to connect the two halves worked great and the seam is nearly invisible. Despite being made from the delectable Malabrigo, it turned out a little itchy on my neck. I have been advised to wash it in vinegar and then treat it with hair conditioner (wool being animal hair after all). I haven't yet tried this, partly because I'm quite enamoured with my cowl.

[ETA: the Candleflame scarf won a 2nd place ribbon at the 2009 County Fair (knitted hat, scarf or mittens set).]

Up next, I bought supplies today for the lovely "Sahara" designed by Wendy Bernard.

I'll be doing it with cap sleeves out of a silk/merino mix and the trim is a silk with sequins. Oh...it's so exciting! I haven't cast on yet because I need to take a breath and some time to get ready to do the necessary swatching and gauge-checking. (So tedious; so essential.)

And I also bought a unbelievably lovely Malabrigo lace weight in "Jewel Blue." At 470 yds I thought it might be enough for a shawl, but now I'm not so sure. Looking through lace shawl patterns has got me all fired up, but first things first. (And first, the Sahara!)

All this makes me wonder, how can I convince my hubby that I really should leave my job and be a stay-at-home wife?

Let me know if you have any great ideas on that!

-christina

Caps for a Cure October

I haven't been in the Caps for a Cure group very long, but I outdid myself this month: two kids hats and three adult hats.

The kids hats were described under my favourite kids hat.

For the adult hat, I did two similar versions of Catherine Lindsay's Durango:

It was a fun crochet project (I don't say that very often), I learned a bit about following patterns in crochet, and I learned a new crochet stitch. I got the buttons from my stash of old buttons I've carried with me forever.

And the last one I did was the Amanda by Gina House. I actually suggested this one to the group and then didn't make it til the very end of the month! The yarn I chose unfortunately did not show off the very nice lace pattern, but the hat turned out nice anyway.

I made a few modifications including starting the decreases in the second lace panel because the hat was getting too long. And then I finished the decreases in garter instead of stocking.

I got all the hats sent off yesterday (Nov 6), so just a touch late but still in time that they should arrive by the deadline of the 15th.

Spurred on by that success, I've already started one for the Nov/Dec cycle and it is going very fast. Having an evening seminar this week that I could knit through certainly helped. The Foliage by Emilee Mooney from knitty.com had caught my eye in the past, and I'm so happy I have the excuse to make it. (Because there are only so many hats I need, but Caps for a Cure can use as many as I can make!)

Next up I need to catch up on some quilting for my class a week from this Saturday (I only have 5 of the "corner spike" units done) and knit some gifts up.

Keep your needles clacking,

christina

Favourite Kids Hat

Isn't this the best pattern ever! I love it. Simple and genius. I've made two of the hats and they couldn't be easier. These will be going to a cancer unit through Caps for a Cure, a group that votes on new patterns to do every month, and changes the cancer center that gets the hats every two months. I like that all I have to do is try out new patterns and knit and crochet hats!