Just the ticket for our January/February weather here. I made the bottom band with Tricolor Basket Plaid, pg 74 and 120 stitches, then went back and picked up 100 stitches from the back of the second row and knit an inner band of knit one purl one ribbing.  This gave me a double thick headband for the forehead and ears.

I joined both back together, reduced to 96 stitches and continued up the hat with Woven Diamond Pattern, pg 97.  I gotta say, I am in love with these patterns that use the floats as decorative elements on the front of the work.  This was one I had been savouring the thought of for a while.  I am glad I like this hat, because I really wanted to make a decent hat with this stitch.  I am also glad I was with my Canterbury Piecemakers (aka Wednesday coffee group) when I was about to do the top of the hat.  Albertina said I shouldn’t do a big topper, just a button or something to bring the maroon back into play.  I did 8 rows of garter stitch on the last 12 stitches, then k2tog around, did a row on 6 stitches and drew my end through.  I used the end to secure the button on top.

To decrease, I did slip 1, k2tog psso at six points every other row, on top of one just completed set of diamonds and in between another set of diamonds.

Great news… I booked a six week trip to Eastern Europe yesterday.  I am going with my brother Charles again.  He was an excellent travelling companion a few years ago for Central America, so I am looking forward to this.  We will arrive in Budapest on the 23rd of March, then work our way south to Greece and come back up to Budapest for me to fly out on May 4th, just in time to start work.  I am hoping to get a new sleep apnea machine that is smaller for the trip.  It also has the ability to work for one night on battery power, so this gives more flexiblity when travelling.I saw the two Cloverleaf Eyelet stitches on pg 170 and decided to stack them on top of each other for this hat.  The Cloverleaf Eyelet Rib was only a 6 stitch repeat as written and the Cloverleaf Eyelet Cable a 7 stitch repeat.  I started knitting the Rib on the bottom and I was not happy with the way I was doing the ssk.  Things turn out differently if you slip the stitches knitwise, purlwise or a combination.  I ended up settling on slipping the stitches knitwise.  I originally added an extra purl between the pattern repeats because I wanted the whole thing to go like a watchcap, so I turned the 6 stitch repeat into a 7.  When I changed over to the Cloverleaf Eyelet Cable and did this for a while, I realised that I had actually increased to an 8 stitch repeat because Barbara Walker had added a knit stitch between each repeat that was not written in the instructions.  I was not happy with anything so I ripped it back all the way.  This meant that I basically knit the hat twice if you count both rip backs together.

I decided that no matter what, I had dicked around enough and even if things didn’t match my vision, I was finishing anyway and moving on.  I had cast on 108 stitches in the final time, this way I had 18 six stitch pattern repeats.  I got rid of them by first reducing every third repeat.  I did a sl 1, k2tog, psso over the cable , then every other row twice more.  This left me with 12 repeats.  I got rid of every other repeat the same way, then finally the last 6.  

Mum just phoned to ask where today’s post was so i thought I better get on it.  I am on a bit of a knitting roll these days, so I have a build-up of hats.  These all have pink in them, so I thought I would show them together.

Before I started on the Barbara Walker thing, I was going to wool stores and buying stuff from the deep discount bins.  I looked through them last week and found the one on the bottom of this hat.  I did the bottom in Lattice Cable, pg 276.  I cast on 120 stitches because I knew the heavy cabling would pull it in a lot.  The Lattice Cable has an 8 stitch repeat.  I decreased one stitch per repeat down to 105 as I switched to the pink for the Traveling Ribbed Eyelet, pg 169, which has a 7 stitch repeat. 

I think the top worked out fine.  I love playing with the decreases to get hopefully interesting patterns on the top.  When I was a quilter, I was all about the back of the quilt looking good with the quilting, now I am all about the tops of the hats.

Hat number two got switched upside down, and I think it is a much better hat than it would have been if things had worked out as originally planned.  I cast on 120 stitches and I thought this would be enough for the draw-in I knew would happen with the Close-Woven Basket Lattice (pg. 278).  I was wrong.  After I had enough of the Two-Color Twisted Ladder, pg 120 to start the decreasing, I realized that if I kept going, it would have had to be another little girl’s hat, so I did the decreases to make this happen.  When I finished, the solid bottom was much too strong visually.   I  could have folded the bottom in two, but I didn’t want to loose the lovely cabling.  I forgot to take a picture before I ripped it back to before the decreasing,   I finished off the now bottom and cast off, then I picked back up from my cast on edge and adjusted the stitch pattern so I could make a top that worked, at least for me.

I actually love the top myself.

This last hat reminds me of something from the sixties.  It uses Horizontal Parallelogram Check (pg 25) on the bottom, then switches to Royal Quilting, pg 72.  I figured out a trick for the tension on the Royal Quilting which was to put my thumb in the travelling strand before knitting the stitch.  This seemed to give the strands just enough slack to pull up without distorting the knitted fabric.

I was going to put a pompom on top like the style seems to be right now, but I like the top and it took a couple of tries to get it ok.  I will probably make the pompom and put it on anyway soon.

I did a couple of hats with bobbles this week.  This first one uses Basic Lattice, pg 276, then a couple of rows of garter stitch before a row of bobbles and another row of garter stitch.  I continued up the hat with Diagonal Rib, pg 24.  I am not thrilled with the top of this one, but it is not bad enough to rip out and redo.  Besides, I am not sure what I would do to improve it.

The next one uses Ribbed Lattice with Bobbles, pg 277.  I reduced quite aggressively at the top so it is pretty flat. I like this top better than the other hat.

I cast on too few stitches and it became apparent that this could not be an adult hat without severely distorting the stitches.  I decided to end it early and make it a childs hat.  I swung by my niece Cate’s house and delivered it on my way out of town the other day.

Arya got a new hat…

I used 102 stitches and Striped Quilting Pattern, pg 72.  I used four points of decrease and decreased two stitches every other row three times in each 8 row pattern repeat.