Author Archives: gillianknitter

Starting with a hatband

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I have noticed quite a few hatbands around this year and I had the idea to build a hat on a hatband.  My favourite hat I ever knit was this type.  I made it when I was in university (decades ago) and I loved it.  It fit better than any other hat I have ever owned since.  I got the pattern from a random magazine like Canadian Living or something.  I owned the hat for a couple of years and then lost it.  I tried for years to find the pattern again but never did.

I have not managed to recreate it by a long shot here, but this is a start.  What I did here is start with a tube.  I cast on 39 stitches and knit them with my 9″ circular sock/mitten needle.  I think I will reduce this to about 35 next time because I think I can still use that needle (I have a hate on for sets of four…all that needle changing drives me spare) but the band won’t be quite as wide, which I think will work a bit better visually.  I continued on these stitches until just before it was long enough to go round my head then I did a slip 1 knit 2 together pass slip stitch over around and knit a couple of rounds on the 13 stitches and cast off.  I then picked up from the cast on edge and did the decrease, knit a couple of rounds, cast off and sewed the two cast off edges together.

After I had the band finished, I used straight needles and cast on 10 stitches.  I purled outer two stitches on each side of a 6 stitch cable which I did long enough to go round the center of the band.  I used a circular needle to pick up 98 stitches around the band about 3/4 of an inch down and then picked up the stitches from the straight needles as well as the corresponding cast on stitches so that the cable went around the center of the hat band.  I added 8 more cables around the hat (purl 6 cable 6 around) and finished body of the hat normally.

Mentors I’ve never met….Charlene Schurch

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hatsonMost of what I learned from anyone else about knitting hats, I learned from Charlene Schurch.  I used to own her book Hats On and, before I started making up my own hat designs,  I spent a good year or so knitting and re-knitting hats from it.  In this book, she has a wide variety of hat shapes and sizes.  She uses both colour work and pattern stitches very effectively.

I knitted almost every hat in the book at least once and one particular hat (one that you knit the persons name in), I made over and over again for all kinds of different people.  I know I made that particular hat at least a dozen times.  This is really the only hat book I ever used much.  I think if anyone was going to own only one hat book, this would be a very good choice, even though it was written quite some time ago.   I lost my copy years ago and never actually replaced it because I don’t use patterns anymore myself.  I ordered it from the library so I could write this post and I realize I am still very influenced by her.

Using this book,  I got a really good feeling for how hats work and, after a while, I gained the confidence to strike out on my own and make up my own hats.  I have figured out a lot about hats myself since I started making my own.  I have noticed that she has moved on to socks and other knitting pursuits.  I am still mostly all about the hats myself…

Happy Twelfth Night

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I have decided not to do a knitting post today as I spent a couple of days this week doing some volunteer historic cooking.  I was at Montgomery Inn in Toronto helping with a Twelfth Night celebration.  One of my jobs was to decorate the Twelfth Cake.  The cake itself was from an 1802 recipe, it was a yeast raised cake made with currants and candied peels, including Buddha’s Hand Citron.  The event was very interesting with the guests sporting Regency Period costumes and dancing traditional dances to live music.

I helped out along with my friend Sarah.  Here we are dressed for serving in 1840’s style (Montgomery’s Inn’s time period).

 

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

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HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014!!!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2014

If I mention felting again…just shoot me and get it over with…there is sooo much more knitting in a felted hat.  I have done 4 of them in a little over a week…I do love how they stand up and hold their shape though.

As you may have gathered in previous posts, Heather is NOT happy with my ‘artistic’ direction.  The other day she said the blog has ruined my hat making ability.  In her opinion, I am trying too hard to be creative for my fans.  I did point out that 20 friends and family and 5 other people following me does not constitute much in the way of fame, but she was having none of that.

I think she just likes plain hats, no bells or whistles, just some pattern stitches and maybe a bobble on top.  None of this wacky stuff.  And I think she has a point.  I do like making the hats with novelty yarn and frills  but I am not sure many would wear them, holidays notwithstanding.

For today’s hat, I didn’t want any of the Bernat Boa left over, so I made the topper first.  I just kept crocheting chains 8 stitches long and returning to the base with 6 single crochet.  I kept this until I thought it had enough spikes. I then cast on 100 stitches and knit until I ran out.  I then switched to Patons Classic wool and increased to 150 stitches.  After 8 rows, I decreased to 144 then lost 8 stitches every 6 rows.

Party hat number two

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New Years Party

New Years hat with Bernat Truffles and Patons Classic Wool

This is the second of (hopefully by tomorrow) three felted New Years party hats.

For this one I used Patons Classic Wool as the felting yarn and I combined it with Bernat Truffles as the accent.  I decreased more aggressively (10 stitches every 6 rows all the way up) on this hat than the one yesterday and I don’t think it was such a great idea.

I am going back to a less aggressive decrease for tomorrows hat.

Elegant fireworks…New Years edition

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New Years hat

New Years hat

I have FINALLY finished the three balls of eyelash yarn.  This will be the last hat in the series.  The concept is that it is f…g cold for outdoor activities on New Years Eve.  This would provide a warm alternative to the traditional party hat.  I am working on another of these party hats,  which I will post before New Years.

For this hat, I knitted the eyelash yarn first with the same wavy stitch I used for the frilly hat with lots of colours.  I knitted one repeat with orange, then blue, red, blue and orange.  I then joined the white Patons Classic Wool and increased the number of stitches by 50% (from 90 to 135).  I reversed the direction of the knitting as I joined in the white then knit up in behind until I had about one and a half times as much length in the white as I had in the eyelash.  I then joined the cast on edge in from the front (I went through the cast on eyelash stitch, then the white in behind).  I picked up two eyelash stitches for every three white.

I knit the rest in white.  I decreased 10 stitches every 7 rows until I had 50 stitches, then 5 stitches every three rows until I had only a few stitches left, then I pulled my yarn through.  I put the whole thing through the washer and dryer.  It wasn’t felted enough so I put it through the washer again and let it air dry.  I made the topper with a combination of knitting and crochet.

A reversible Christmas hat

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For this hat, I knitted “Bah! Humbug” upside down, then did several rows plain before knitting  “Peace on Earth” upright.  I knitted another two rows, then rejoined to the cast on row to make a rolled brim.  After rejoining the brim, the main body of the hat was then knitted with a reversible stitch.

Heather came up as I was finishing the second set of letters to ask what it said.   I explained the concept of the reversible hat with a saying on each side of the brim, which could be turned inside out depending on the wearers mood.  In her capacity as provider of constructive criticism, she only had two simple words: “Oh, dear!”

The actual idea for the two sayings came from a reversible Christmas ornament I found in a magazine in my brief phase as a crafter of plastic canvas.  When Jacob was a baby, I discovered plastic canvas and, after doing the ornaments from the magazine, I did a whole series of baby blocks with rattly stuff inside and 3-d crocheted animals and holes on the faces so a baby could grab on easily to the toys.  This phase scared Alan.  He had seen me as a potter, doing a two year college diploma in ceramics.  He had seen me designing knitted sweaters (Heather discovered a few in the attic and wears them regularly now).  He had seen me dabble with weaving and hand spinning.  He kept coming home in the plastic canvas phase to me excitedly showing him my new creations.  After a couple of weeks, he looked at me quizzically and said “are you sure this is actually a real craft?”.

If I had it to do over again, I would definitely leave more space between the words in the two sayings. Or I may use smaller lettering so that you can see a whole saying at once.  In designing hats, as in many other things, hindsight is 20/20.

Merry Christmas!

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Heather as Santa

Heather as Santa

This is one of only two Christmas hats I made this year.  I will post the other one tomorrow (when it is hopefully finished!).

This hat was knitted and then put through the washer and dryer twice.  The brim and bobble were made with a machine washable and dryable yarn.  I made a rolled rim, then switched to Patons Classic wool and increased the number of stitches significantly.  I decreased evenly up the hat, loosing 10 stitches every 10 rows.  As I approached the top, I started decreasing less per row, more frequently so I didn’t have large jogs.

Who are the models???

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A friend from work who follows the blog asked me the other night who the models were, so this post will hopefully provide some insight on that.

I have seven siblings.  Our names, in birth order, are Jane, Charles, Felicity, Gillian (me), Philippa (Phil), Penelope (Penny), Nicola (Nicky) and Melanie.  Many of us also have spouses and children.  Not all of us were at the photoshoot.

Diagonal drifts

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Nicky in a travelling rib patterned hat

Nicky in a travelling rib patterned hat

grey and white diagonal pattern

grey and white diagonal pattern

There are some pattern stitches which move diagonally.  I think this gives the hat a nice dynamic quality.  Here are two hats that use this diagonal movement.  I was happy with both of these hats when I made them.

As with most of my hats, I was again using Patons classic wool.

I follow another blog that has some really nice hats with diagonal movement in her photo gallery, in case you are interested in other (possibly better) examples.