Tag: knitted hat

Three Felted Hats, Family, and the Tulip Tree at Dawn

Christmas was wonderful this year, and it was such a pleasure to see everyone together.  I’m always grateful for the family I have,  their warmth and love.  That is the best present of all.

The Original Felt Hat

Am wore the original white felted hat to dinner.  I got a photograph or two of it, and looked at its construction.

The original hat for Am is somewhere between the blue Top Down! and the teal Heads Up! It was knit of heavy white yarn, which I believe was also Lamb’s Pride.  The decreases on brim and crown were staggered so that the line of decreases was not evidenced as lines, which you can see both of the Heads Up!  Top Down! hats.  Also, the decreases were quite abrupt – like every row, with the decreases not done on top of each other.  I counted about 50 rounds of knitting altogether.  The body of the hat was longer than on the blue hat, with a brim somewhere between the blue and teal hat.

The blue and teal hats were well received, and look quite nice on Am.  She liked both colors, which certainly was good to hear!

I plan to re-create the white hat – personally, I like its shape better – but that may be a bit off into the future.  I think that if I do Top Down! I will knit it up as follows, using another skein of Lamb’s Pride (not in blue or teal!):

Cast on 4 stitches; kfb all stitches, 8 stitches total, transfer to 3 needles, join.

Kfb each stitch; 16 stitches total.

Knit one round.

Kfb each stitch, 32 stitches total.

Knit one round.

Kfb each stitch, 64 stitches total.

*Kfb, k3* to end – 90 stitches total.

At this point, I would assess diameter of brim.  Could be that 90 stitches will do fine for hat.  Maybe increase about 10 more stitches.  Then knit straight for about 8 inches.

Begin brim by increase of about 25% of total stitches on needles; knit straight about 1.5-2 inches.  Decrease about 10% of stitches.  Knit even 1-2 inches.  Decrease another 10% to curl brim over and knit about 1 inch in length.

This Morning

Up at six this morning, and through the shutters saw a rosy color in the sky.  Grabbed the camera and took these before they disappeared.

Tulip Tree at Dawn on 26 December 2009
The View Down the Street

On to the New Year!

Coline – by Lucy Sweetland

A few weeks ago I mentioned I’d won a free pattern..  Lucy Sweetland of A Black Pepper decided, very generously, to share a copy of her hat Coline with a few lucky people.  I was one!  And I just fell in love with this hat.

Altogether, I have made three Colines in the past few weeks.  Two were out of worsted weight yarn, tweedy red and blue Wool Ease.  These are destined for the wool-sensitive, gotta-throw-everything-into-the-washing-machine family members. The red Coline was a bright, cardinal red, and impossible to photograph. The blue one was not easy to photograph, either, but I am not especially good at photography! Nonetheless, these hats do show you the beauty of the detail and design which make Coline so lovely.



The third Coline I made out of some hand spun yarn I made years ago out of grey and cream Shetland, mohair, and mylar I carded together. The Wool Ease hats were easy to knit up, but the hand spun yarn was slick and kept sliding off the needles. I am keeping the hand spun hat for myself, though, as it really is my favorite.



If you are looking for a beanie or close-fitting hat, Coline is perfect. And if you want to see very nice photographs of Coline, be sure to head over to Lucy’s website – not only is she a great designer, she also is an amazing photographer. And now, Coline comes in other flavors – mitts and a neckwarmer as well.