Category Archives: Uncategorized

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).

 

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.

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.

Similar hats

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two similar hats

two similar hats

I am not getting much finished this week as I haven’t had a lot of time to knit.  Rather than let it go without a post for too long, I am showing a pair of hats that have a lot of similarities but are different.

Meg gets in her sisters face

Meg gets in her sister’s face

Both are made with the same off white wool (Patons Classic wool) and a rolled rim.  They also both have the same 6 stitch cable, but the stitches connecting the cables are quite different. The tops are also different.  One has the i-cord rose and the other has the cables disappear into each other at the top.

They definitely look related, but just changing a couple of things can really change the hat.

My day job (during tourist season)…

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Asselstine Woolen Factory- Upper Canada Village

Asselstine Woollen Factory- Upper Canada Village

I work in the Asselstine Woollen Factory at Upper Canada Village.  I have been working at the village for 7 years, and in the Woollen Mill for 4.  We are a fully operational, water turbine driven woollen mill.  We have all the machinery necessary to make blankets and knitting yarn.  Our spinning jack and our set of 3 carding machines were manufactured in Massachusetts in 1867 and we also have a blanket loom from the 1840’s.

I work with two men, Mark and Ron who maintain (read constantly have to troubleshoot) and run the machinery.  I do the handwork…mending the blankets, tying the fringe on the ends of blankets, etc.  I also run the doubling frame (plying machine) to make the knitting yarn over the lunch hour most days.

Ron in front of a carding machine

Ron in front of a carding machine

Mark at the spinning jack

Mark at the spinning jack

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Some of the things I like about my job:

1) I am paid to talk to people about wool

2) Sometimes I get to knit at work, if I have no blankets to mend or fringe

3) As I mend the blankets, I hear people hit the top of the stairs and say ‘wow’

4) I have not given up hope that Ryan Gosling will visit his family in nearby Cornwall and come for a day trip to the village.  Then he would stand in front of me and say ‘hey girl, would you explain 19th century textile production to me?’

Let it snow…

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Jane with snowflakes

Jane with snowflakes

We had a LOT of snow overnight and all of a sudden we are living in a winter wonderland again,,,until the snow gets dirty anyway.  I love seasons.

This is a hat I always thought worked out OK.  I was waiting for snow to show it.  I like how the variegated adds a bit of interest.  I also think the i-cord rose is nice in the variegated.  See instructions for rose.  And of course you can’t go wrong with off white to show off the cabling…

Top view

Top view

Flags

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Meg had the right t-shirt to go with this one...

Meg had the right t-shirt to go with this one…

I had a very short-lived phase where I was going to do flags.  I did the Union Jack first.  I then did the Quebec fleur-de-lis.  I had big plans to go on to other ones, but I got sidetracked after these two.

Jay with the fleur-de-lis

Jay with the fleur-de-lis

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Just the hat…union jack