Hats and More Hats

I mentioned in my last post that I hadn't met my Mission Possible 2008 goal of finishing a charity item each month. In reaction, this has been Hat Week; I've finished 4. Gotta love the fast gratification!! I made 2 versions of the extremely popular Binary Cables Hat (#1 at Ravelry right now), another Binary Hat from a different pattern, and the 'Toddler' version of the Republic Hat.

The Republic Hat may have been made from the 'Toddler' version, but that's written for worsted rather than chunky/bulky yarn, and although it's a bit shallow, it is 19in in circumference, plenty big enough for me (and Edith Head, lol). I used bits and pieces for this, starting out with the band using some Dale Free Style in white and a bit of teal acrylic mohair I had. Then I realized I didn't have enough Free Style and switched to Patons Classic in a nearly-white, along with some authentic mohair, for the rest of the hat. The pattern calls for a really big button, but all I had were two small ones.

I made the first version of the Binary Cables Hat with Nashua Creative Focus Worsted, following the pattern, and I found it to be a bit shallow, too. I really like the yarn, though for a rather-basic yarn it's a bit pricey (at least at my LYS; MSRP is $8) compared to say, Patons Classic. Since this was TV knitting, I found that putting a marker every 28 stitches (total is 112), really helped to make sure I had all the cables in the right place; the cable rows are generally written for 4 repeats .


Since both of these are for A4A or Dulaan, I realized I needed one for my seniors' group, which sends a lot of hats to Operation Gratitude for the troops. So I pulled out some Caron's Simply Soft in Dark Country Blue and made another Binary Cables hat. For this one, I added 4 rows before starting the pattern as written, just to add a bit of depth, and it worked very well. Simply Soft is a nice acrylic, not scratchy or squeaky on the needles, with a bit of a silky feel.


And yesterday I finished a different sort of Binary Hat, this one supposedly 'spelling out' "hat" in Binary. Regardless, it's a nice easy stockinette hat, and the stripes are narrow enough that I was able to strand the color changes, and the 'jogs' are nearly invisible. Love it! This is also done in Creative Focus, in two shades of green.

And I finally decided on a pattern for my lovely Sea Silk gift yarn. I don't have enough in the one skein for Eunny Jang's lovely Print o' the Wave stole, but I found this variation at the Posh Yarn website, Sea & Shells, via Ravelry. At the moment there are only 6 or 7 rows, so showing it to you is going to present a narrow band of pretty much nothing. But the pattern is pretty straight-forward and I have great hopes for success. The Sea Silk is, IMO, a very fine version of fingering weight yarn, so this is another step in my plan to 'work down' to laceweight. Cross your fingers for me!

Off the topic of knitting, I wanted to pass along a recommendation for a couple of books. Among the many that I've read in the last couple of weeks is 'The Other Boleyn Girl', a novel by Philippa Gregory. The movie is recently out, starring Scarlett Johansson and Natalie Portman. I found the premise quite interesting, and apparently Ms Gregory is one of the first to explore the part that Mary Boleyn played in Henry VIII's love life. Having several biographies about Henry VIII, I found myself digging into them to get another perspective. Note that, in all of the other books I have, Mary Boleyn gets barely a sentence or two, in spite of the fact that she was Henry's mistress for 2 or 3 years. Alison Weir has written several books about this period, and I find that her writing style is very easy to read and seemingly well-balanced; she's quite meticulous about noting those conclusions that are suppositions rather than based on documentary evidence. I just finished her 'The Children of Henry VIII', which stops at Queen Mary's death.

The Needles are Smokin'!!!

Whee! I have been so productive knitting-wise. I am *jazzed*!! Hats, mitts, more hats, and the start of my second pair of toe-up socks.

My dear knitbuds of the OOPS group started a KAL on the Shedir hat from Knitty's 2004 Breast Cancer surprise extra, beginning Jan 1. I fudged a bit, getting the 9 ribbing rows done New Year's Eve. And last night I finished the hat. Since I used Rowan's Cashsoft DK, my gauge was different from the pattern, even though I used US 2 needles. While I got close to the 17in circumference per the pattern, by the time I got to the 3rd of 5 repeats of the main section, I was already at 5.5in in depth. Row gauge versus stitch gauge!! So I skipped the other repeats and switched to US1.5 (2.5mm) needles for the decrease section. As you can see from how it fits Molly Model, this is one *deep* hat. The pattern calls for 9in from crown to brim, and it's about that. But it is soft and pretty, and someone fighting cancer will undoubtedly appreciate it. I learned to do small cables and twists without a cable needle on this project, and I also learned that this plays merry hell on my poor old wrists. Wendy and Grumperina both have excellent tutorials on how to cable without a needle. The yarn is a paler blue than this shows.

I'm pleased to help spread the news: my dear friend Grumperina got married!!! Here's the link, though it's only to a photo of the grumpy/happy couple.

Months ago, I made a Ribwarmer vest from Elizabeth Zimmerman's pattern, using some lusciously soft Cascade Cloud 9 angora-blend yarn I got last winter from Unwind's Superbowl sale leftovers. I liked the Madge hat and mitts I made for my dear friend Madge, so I decided to make them again in the soft Cloud 9. My gauge in this yarn was enough different from the Di.Vé. Autunno yarn I used for Madge's gift that the hat was too shallow, so after it was finished, I dithered for a couple of days and then ripped back to the last row of the main pattern, to add more rows. The mitts were done, too, but the 48-st ribbing I used was a tad loose, and I frogged them, too, going down to 40 sts. There's just a thumb slit, and there are 2 horizontal repeats of the hat pattern, 1.5 vertical repeats, on the back of the hand. Yummy!



I've finished some charity hats, 2 more baby-sized ones, from a skein of Encore Colorspun DK I bought ages ago; that makes 4 from one skeinAnd there was enough left from my last year's projects of the Bernat Camouflage yarn in the Outback colorway to make one more hat; this one is toddler-size. I really like the way the colors stripe in the Outback, and it's nice acrylic, so to speak.










Last but not least, yesterday I started a test-knit project for my Unwind friend Keri Mac. She's designed some lovely slip-stitch socks, knitted toe-up, and I volunteered to be the test knitter. I've only made one pair of toe-up socks, so this is a learning experience for me, too. I chose some Socks that Rock in the fingering weight, colorway Cobblestone Country (color seems to be discontinued). Keri knitted her socks in Rowan Wool Cotton, so her gauge is quite different, but I thought that a lot of knitters would want to use sockweight yarn. I'm making notes as I go along, but I've already decided that this yarn - and perhaps most hand-dyed yarns - won't show off the pretty vertical slip-stitch pattern. So I'm going to frog this and try a solid or semi-solid color. Look at that nice round toe! My second Figure-8 cast-on. I'm so proud, lol! (Damn fiddly thing.)

I've been working along on my pretty Misty Garden feather-and-fan scarf, and I've spent hours and hours poring over shawl patterns, trying to decide on the 'right' pattern for my luscious Lonesome Stone alpaca. OK, off to do some stash-diving in my sock yarns.