This is actually the third iteration of this hat. It is a version of the skull hat that I started the blog with back before Halloween. After I made the skull hat, Heather commissioned an alien hat. She wore it a lot and I always meant to photograph it properly but sadly it has gone AWOL at this point. I only have a pretty ropey picture of her in it…
These are two hats I did quite a long time ago that work with valentines coming this week. I made the one on the left first and was not happy with the result. I tweaked things a bit and made the other one, which I was happier with and have shown in two views.
Here is a hint:
Olympic hat, felted knitting with crocheted rings
This hat was knitted using the pattern I gave for “yer basic felted hat” with crocheted rings added.
I decided to work out how to do a bit of a brim on a basic felted hat shape.
Basic felted hat with brim
This hat could probably be used as a base for decoration like the pillbox, but I am showing it plain first.
Do it yourself: Patons Classic Wool size 4 1/2mm needles
Brim: Cast on 200 stitches, I worked the brim in garter stitch…knit one round, purl one round, decreasing was done on every other knit round (4th, 8th, 12th,16th and 20th rounds). There were 10 stitches decreased evenly around on each of the 5 decrease rounds, and the decreases were staggered each time.
Body: When you down to 150 stitches, continue in stocking stitch (knit every round) until work measures 9 1/2″ (24 cm) from the beginning.
Top: Next round *knit 27, slip 1, k2 tog, psso* repeat around (this will dec 10 stitches around). Knit 2 rounds plain. *knit 25, slip 1, k2 tog, psso* repeat around. Knit 2 rounds plain….continue in this manner doing the decreases with two plain rounds between until after the row with *knit 15, slip 1 k2 tog, psso* at this point start putting only one plain round between until the round with *knit 3, slip 1 k2 tog, psso* after this round, keep knitting 2 together constantly until you have 7 stitches left. Break your yarn and pull it through.
Run a string round the point at which the brim meets the body of the hat. Pull it to the correct diameter for your head and tie with a reef knot. Send the hat through the washer, dryer, and washer with laundry. Dry on a form.
I was showing some of my old hats to another knitter a couple of weeks ago, including the one I showed the other day. Her immediate reaction was “you should do this one again in black and white with a big fuchsia pom-pom”. There were only two things wrong with that. I rarely do any hat more than once, and I don’t really like pom-poms per se. I did however love her idea for the colour scheme. This is one of two hats ideas her comment gave me. The other one is still on the needles. I put a big one of my i-cord roses on top because I do like making them. I couldn’t decide whether to turn the brim up or not, I have photographed it both ways.
I am actually considering breaking into publishing a pattern (say it ain’t so). I thought I might try to put this one on ravelry. I have never actually been to ravelry, although I have been told to go there many times. I guess I will have to if I am actually going to do this.
…at least I must have when I made this hat. I remember someone saying that their wife would have trouble looking at it for any length of time.
I made this hat quite a while ago, I am not sure exactly when. It has been kicking around for a long time. I made it back before I was a real ripper outer because I remember thinking at the time that I should have started the decrease later but it was “too late”. I wouldn’t do that nowadays…it would be redone within the hour (or whatever length of time the redo took). Actually I don’t think it is too bad because looking around in the world at large, I see that people have all sorts of preferences for how low hats come, and this would probably be in the wheelhouse of many people that weren’t me.
I started with knit 1 purl 1 rib in maroon and knit for 1 1/2″ (3cm) then increased the number of stitches by 50% and did the larger chequerboard pattern. I did four repeats then joined back into the cast on row with a rolled rim. I then decreased back to the original number of stitches and continued up. I used four double decrease points at the top.
The urge to felt seems to have somewhat abated for awhile….
Did I mention that I bought 4 balls of eyelash yarn just before I started the blog? (and you thought it was only 3 and you were done hearing about the them with the demise of the elegant fireworks…). Not so lucky you… Anyway…this is the only hat I came up with for the fourth ball. The rest of the ball will languish with the other part balls of novelty yarn that are left over from the only hats I have made out of Them…..
I called this post Perestroika because whenever she wears it, Heather reminds me of someone from a Russian novel. I figure this hat is actually successful because Heather chooses to wear it all the time. I have seen her wear it at least a dozen times to school…you know,,,that place she goes most days that is chock full of her peers…she did however decline to pose for the picture as you can see from the ‘model’.
Way back when, when we were in high school, one of our sisters dated boys that fit into this category. Back then, I was all over the cute, but not so much the dumb. This phrase is what I have been thinking about while making this hat. And I have had as much fun making it as it is useless…
I think I mentioned that I had to make a trial run at the top of the fez the other day because I couldn’t get the red wool right away. I had a pink flat felted top lying around and I felt (ha, ha) I had to use it. “Self”, I said, “what else besides a fez has a flat top?”…answer…a pillbox hat…and so it goes…
After I had the basic hat made, I broke into my “stuff” cupboard and got out a 2″ (2cm) wide strip of leftover crepe bias which I gathered the edge of and put around a vintage button I picked up at the knitting guild vendors night. Then I used pairs of peacock feathers that NIcky and Suja brought me back from India. I put the pairs back to back so they are nice from either side and put them in behind the button.
This is NOTHING like the plan I had when I went into the stuff cupboard, but I am happy with the result. I remember when I was doing my diploma in ceramics, I used to drive one of the professors crazy at the crits because she was an “artist” who believed you had to draw a picture of the finished pot before you started throwing the darn thing. She would ask me why I did things to the pots and all I ever had to say was “because I thought it would look good” or “I kept doing stuff till I thought it looked okay”. Needless to say, my pottery never made it to galleries.
Do it yourself: (Patons Classic Wool 4 1/2 mm needles)
Sides: Cast on 112 stitches onto a 16″ (40 cm) needle. Knit for 6 inches. Cast off. Run strings around the cast on and cast off edges, through each stitch. Pull each string to a 5 1/2″ diameter circle and tie with reef knots. Put through the washer and dryer twice. Fold bottom edge over 1/2″
Top: Cast on 4 stitches, purl one row, turn, Increase one stitch in each stitch (8 stitches). DIvide onto 3 needles. Knit one round plain. Increase one stitch in each stitch around (16 stitches total). Knit one round plain. Knit one, increase one around (24 stitches total), Knit one round plain. Knit 2, increase one around (32 stitches total). Knit one round plain….continue until you have 112 stitches ending after the plain round. Cast off loosely. Put through washer and dryer twice.
Pin top down onto the bottom every 1/2″ (1 cm), then sew together using a ladder stitch. Embellish as desired.
…remember on New Years day when I said if I mention felting again shoot me? IT WAS A JOKE…please don’t shoot me, it would hurt…it seems like felting is all I can think about these days…It’s not that I have an one track mind or anything (like my father or several other family members I could name in an instant..you know who you are)…
This is a basic felted hat I have been working on. I had been planning on using my embellishing machine to play with the surface of it but I like it plain for now. I may do another one and play with it. Since it is straight knitting it can be done anywhere. Heather and I are getting along a lot better lately. She is only providing constructive criticism these days…not such good copy but a much calmer homelife in general I must say…Not to worry, she is 17 and I am me so I am sure we will be able to tick each other off again at some point… The purple bow accent was her idea and I think it is nice. It is the same bow tie as I made the other day to go with the Dr. Who fez.
Do it yourself:
(Patons Classic Wool … lime green 4 1/2mm needles) I use a 16″ (40cm) needle until the stitches won’t fit then switch to a set of 4
Cast on 140 stitches. Do 2 rounds k1, p1 rib then knit plain till it measures 9 1/12 inches. Next round…knit 25, slip 1, k2 tog, psso, around (=loose 10 stitches). Do two rounds plain, Next round knit 23, slip 1, k2 tog, psso around. Do two rounds plain…
Keep going this way doing your decreases every third round until the round that you do knit 15, slip 1 knit 2 tog, psso around. At this point you start only putting one round in between your decrease rounds instead of two.
At the point where you have done knit 3, then your decrease around (i.e. 20 stitches left) it is time for the rapid descent or you will end up with an elfen point. When I got down to the 20 stitch mark, I just kept knitting 2 together until I had about 7 stitches left, then cut my thread and ran the end through and pulled it tight.
I sent it through the washing machine twice and the dryer once in between. If you look at the pictures close up you can see that there is still some detail in the stitches visible. You would have to cast on more stitches if you were planning to felt it completely and make the fabric indistinct.
I dried it the second time on my hat form. A cheap alternative to a hat form is a Styrofoam wig stand you get from a beauty supply place. If you were going this route, I would put the hat on my head and tell it where to go before I let it dry on the Styrofoam head.
Bow: Patons Classic wool 4 1/2 mm needles. Cast on 26. Divide onto a set of 3 needles. Knit 12, p1 until it measures 4″(10cm). Cast off. Sew up ends with purl stitches running down the sides and cinch the middle.
This post is relatively technical and if you are not a knitter, you may want to stop reading now before the boredom hits too hard, but please look at the pretty pictures anyway…
I have figured something out over time while I have been doing some of these felted hats. I may have been told these things somewhere back in the distant past and forgot them, but I will never forget them again. There are two major contributing factors to the shape of a knitted hat, only one of them being the stitches that are put into it. Any knitter that has blocked a lace shawl (or a sweater for that matter) knows the power of the pins. Felting in the washing machine and dryer is no different but you are not in there with the stuff to control things and there is no board to pin things on.
I would never expect to wash a lace shawl without blocking it so I am not sure why it took me so long to figure out I had to corral the hat before I felted it. This is what went horribly wrong with the Remembrance Day hat back in November (before the epiphany). I just put it through the washer and dryer and let it get tugged around by the wringer and the other laundry willy nilly. It shrank but there was no control to it. I went back today and re felted it with a string around the cinch point. The hat may still have issues but that one is fixed…
It now looks quite a bit like the 20’s style cloche I was originally trying for but thought I had failed miserably at. I also had only put it through the wash and dry once. It really felts a lot the second time through. Actually often it seems only two washes with a dryer in between is enough; take a good look after the second wash and decide if you really need to put it in again or not. Things seem to depend on water temperature (hotter felts more) and the amount of other laundry in there with it (space to move felts things more).
So yesterday on the Doctor Who fez, I actually ran strings through the cast on and cast off edges. I pulled them to about the tightness I thought they should end up at and eased the fullness around before I sent them through the washer and dryer….and P.S. be a Girl Scout…tie a reef knot so it will not come undone in the washing machine (ask me how I know!)
gillianknits 