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Variations on a theme…Aran knit hat

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Heather read my blog the other day and said that I was probably giving the impression that most of my hats are weird and made out of novelty yarn.  That is why I finished the top down hat for yesterday and I have decided to show a series of Aran hats today.  I worked on these back when I had aspirations to writing a hat design book,  The challenge I gave myself in this exercise was to make up a basic Aran pattern for a hat, then change the appearance of the hat by making different brims and tops.  These are what I came up with, 6 worsted weight hats and one hatband out of Patons Classic Wool, and a stripped down chunky wool version (can’t remember what it was)–okay, I admit, some of them may be weird.

Top down hat

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top down hat

top down hat

top down hat...detail

top down hat…detail

I made just the top of this hat a couple of weeks ago so I could demonstrate the i-cord rose that I like to use (see Technique: I-cord rose (aka go big or go home)).  I only had the crown of the hat, so I picked up from the original cast on and built the hat downwards from there.  Unfortunately, I had only a few feet of yarn left of the variegated I had made the rose with…not even enough for one row more so I couldn’t reintroduce it further down for balance.  I think it is ok anyway.

In order to keep things consistent, I cast everything off and picked up all the stitches again twice further down the hat, once at each place I changed patterns.  I used Patons Classic Wool, yet again.  I always use a 4 1/2 mm needle with this yarn,  For the cast off, I wanted it loose to match the tension on the cast on edge near the crown, so I went up to a 7 mm just for the middle cast off.  Looking at this line,  I thought it could be even looser, so for the final cast off, closest to the ribbing, I used an 8 mm needle. I think I will go with 8 mm in future if I do this again.

Teletubby Puke

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I used to have a clipping on my fridge with a list of encouraging phrases you could use to praise your children.  Good job, that’s great, fantastic, etc.  I kept it there so I didn’t sound too repetitive when I was expressing myself to my children, Jacob and Heather.

Teletubby puke colours

Teletubby puke colours

Heather came home from school when I had a few inches done on the first of these hats.  I thought it was going well so I asked her what she thought. “It looks like teletubby puke” was the answer.  I thought to myself yo, bitch, what do you know? (I was in the middle of a Breaking Bad marathon on Netflix) …those colours are nothing like the teletubby colours…I did not say it…that would have been discouraging to my offspring… and who knows, maybe colours change in the stomachs of teletubbies?

Teletubby puke

Heather wearing Teletubby puke

I have come to realize that our children hopefully thrive on the encouragement we give them in their endeavours, but the mother of a teenage girl must carry on despite the discouragement. Heather does wear Teletubby Puke quite a lot and is proud of the name she gave it.  She is still my best critic and her (sometimes) derisive comments often help me think of new paths to take.

Three more because I liked the colours...

Three more because I liked the colours…

Playing with variegated yarn

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3 out of our 4 Sarahs

3 out of our 4 Sarahs

 

top view

top view

I have found that if you play with many variegated yarns you can find the sweet number of stitches to make them separate into their individual colours.  This is a Patons Classic Wool variegated yarn. To get this effect, you have to play a bit.  Cast on the number of stitches you would normally do for your hat.  On your second round, you will see how close or far the colours are from lining up on top of each other.  If they are only one or two stitches out, back up a bit and either increase or decrease a couple of stitches before the beginning of the second round.  If they are way out, you may have to start over again.

As I was knitting, I periodically had to adjust by increasing or decreasing stitches here and there to keep the colours lined up.  I am not sure how successful any of these hats are but as you can see I did three before I gave up.

 

the halloween hats – cats with spiderweb

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Side view

Side view

This is the second of my Halloween hats.  I was thinking about Halloween icons after the skull hat and I decided on the black cats.  We actually own three cats and two of them, Domino and Shadow, are both pure black.  I am not sure the cats on this hat are all that great but it is really hard sometimes to pixelate a picture well when you are trying to work with only a few rows and stitches to fit into the hat correctly. Luckily enough we have all been trained over the years to recognize some iconic pictures so I am sure everyone knows they are black cats anyway.

top view

top view

I felt that the hat needed some black near the top to balance all the black at the bottom, so I made the top into a spiderweb as I decreased. I also crocheted a spider and sewed her on the side.

the halloween hats- skulls

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                                                            side view skulls

I have finally made a hat that seems to capture the imagination of many different people. Pete, who is renovating our bathroom loved that it had skulls on it and went on your head. My daughter Heather just returned from a weekend of Scouting and had shown the pictures on her camera to her friends who all liked it.  My coffee friends came over this week and Lidia  walked right over to the Styrofoam head and plucked it off within minutes of arriving. My family put in 5 orders for Christmas on Thanksgiving weekend (good luck with that).

skulls back view 

I was inspired to make this hat while I was crocheting a skull shawl a friend had found on Ravelry.  I thought a skull image would work well for a  hat and I have always liked the high contrast you get using black and white.

skull detail

 

 

 

 

I have been threatening to start this blog for months (read: years).  I have done two other blogs before to record travels, but they were only for friends and family.  This one I hope may be read by people I don’t know as well.