Hats are finished...

As of yesterday, at least temporarily, I have turned out the lights and closed the door of my hat making studio.  Finished hats are handed over, and, as happy as I was to make them for a hat giveaway in a few weeks, I'm feeling exceedingly happy to let myself move on to other projects.

It's funny how when I commit myself to one project for a period of time, all the other things start looking intensely interesting. Nevermind that before my one-project commitment, I wasn't really doing any of those other things.

Such is my life. Maybe you relate?  I am seriously looking forward to working on a different project this week, but I'm not going to say what it is.  The interest I feel for it at the moment will fly right out the window the moment I say aloud what it is. Does anyone at all relate to that?!?  

But before I move on to new things, here's my final update.  I knit three more hats this past week following the Benefaction Knit Hat pattern, using a helix knitting pattern on two, and substituting a 1x1 ribbing for the suggested 2x2 ribbing.  And, finally, I added yarny poms to three especially girly hats.

Here's the most recent lineup:

Since hand made pom poms may not fare well in the laundry, I decided to fasten the poms on the above hats using buttons to tie them on with.  Like so:

I threaded the yarn through two diagonally opposite large holes of the button, then wrapped the two ends of the yarn two different directions under the button and tied the ends into a tight bow.

In retrospect, not being sure that someone will actually notice the button inside the crowns of these hats, I'm now thinking it might have been a good idea to add a tag to these hats, explaining that the pom is removable, and mention fiber content, and that these are machine washable.

Thinking that other handmade hats will likely not have care tags on them, and knowing these are all machine wash and dryable, I'm not feeling too badly about it, but it's a thought for the future.

Things I've learned:

1)  I decided it's best to get started on this kind of multi-project project earlier.  Spread the work throughout the year when there is plenty of time to experiment with different patterns.  And when I'm not in the mood to learn a new pattern, or just want an easy knit, a simple hat pattern can be made more special and fun just knitting colorful stripes or blocks of different colors.

2) I learned how to make jogless joins when changing colors, working wide stripes in the round, and making skinny stripes using helical knitting.

3)  I rediscovered how fun helical knitting is.

4) I learned how to knit a double brim.  It's a nice finish, though it tends to increase the time it takes to knit a hat by about a third.  That's significant when working under a time constraint.

5)  It doesn't take much yarn to knit a hat.  As an occasional knitter, who is an avid crocheter, I was shocked to rediscover this.  My realization:  I could make a hundred hats, and it would hardly make a dent in my huge yarn stash.  Fortunately, my favorite thing to make with yarn is blankets.  And have recently learned how nice a shawl is around my shoulders and arms - and so much easier to put on and whip off than a sweater is. I'm now happily anticipating cooler weather soon and once again enjoying crocheting these cozy things.

Hats and Hurricanes...

It's starting to come down to the wire, and, mentally, I'm ready to wrap this hat making project up.  In reality, I have the rest of this week to make hats if I choose to do so. If you detect a small note of negativity with that last statement, you would be correct.  

So far, I feel like I'm failing to make an appropriately sized hat.  I was told the hats were to be "child size", and nothing more.  Not having a child handy, I feel like I'm guessing as to what size that must be.  I can see size charts online, but that's not like having a real head to try one on.  My hats so far seem to be possibly baby-sized, and one is adult sized (it  fits me and I think I probably have an average sized adult head).  

I'll probably have time to try two more times over the next few days.  I would be thrilled to finish at least one that appears to be solidly "child sized".

While knitting on DPNs (Double Pointed Needles, for non knitters) is a bit tricker than knitting on a corded needle, I get a little excited when I transfer from circular needles to these little sticks.  From this point, it's pretty quick work to finish a hat. 

Because I'm running into some minor issues decreasing the crowns while I'm doing helical knitting, I think I'm just going to make any more hats I knit a solid color at the top.  My hat crowns look perfectly fine, but as I'm knitting the crowns, I keep second-guessing the situation when the color change doesn't seem to work together with the decreasing stitches.  Somehow it works out, but I'm getting weary of worrying about it until the hat is finished.  So, from here on out, my hats will either be completely solid in color, or they will have wide stripes or blocks of color (so I can work the decreases in one colorway only).  It probably doesn't need to be noted, but I am making the simplest of hats here.  I think they're decent hats, but they are simple.

Here are last week's finishes:

While I'm turning hats over on Saturday to be taken to the donation site, I'm thinking I want to wrap this up mid-week.  Especially, if I end up feeling like I want to make pom poms.  Truth is, I don't want to make pom poms, but I think there are one or two hats that would benefit from one.

Because hat knitting feels almost trivial in light of the tragedy that has struck so many in parts of the Southeastern U.S., I also want to address the topic.  

I'm sure just as it is with you if you were spared the wrath of Helene, I am heartbroken daily as I watch and read about the devastation so many people are suffering from. I have greatly appreciated youtubers who are able to report what's been going on, and I am humbled and touched beyond words seeing and hearing of the selflessness of so many who are coming to the aid of those who are/were trapped, and who are found wandering out of the forests.  It is mind boggling to see what the human spirit can endure.  And frightening to also see how fragile we are as human beings. The work ahead is mind numbing to think about.  I cannot imagine how exhausting it is to experience it.

ETA: Because a regular reader, Linda G, made mention of an organization in North Carolina that is working to provide assistance to mothers and babies suffering in the wake of Hurricane Helene, I found the Facebook page where interested readers can see updates about this organization's efforts:

https://www.facebook.com/theboobtiquelkn

More information can be found in Linda G's message below.

And, as hard as it is to believe, now less than two weeks later, I join those also praying for all in the path of Milton. 

~~~~~ 

Hats...

This is the second in a series of posts over the next few weeks where I'm sharing hats (and hat patterns) that I hope to contribute to an upcoming toy/hat/blanket giveaway.  I figured I'd just answer the question that will inevitably be asked - "What will you do with all those hats?"  😉

Feeling less than thrilled with my hat knitting last week, I went back to something that felt more natural for my fingers - crochet.  I searched through patterns I'd made before, and I quickly settled on this Stepping Texture hat:

Crocheted in Vanna's Choice, worsted weight in the colorway Silver Blue 

Video Tutorials for this hat can be found at the following links:

Yarnspirations (I like this for showing the slip stitch ribbing)

DIY Danni (While it's harder to see her work because of the dark yarn being used, this video shows making a single crochet ribbing - which is an easier stitch).

~~~~~

After having success with making a familiar crocheted hat, I went back to the Benefaction Hat pattern, and ditching the idea of doing stranded colorwork, I worked up a small simple beanie.  It will probably only fit a baby, but it's a successfully knitted hat, and that was my goal:

Knit in Lion Brand Heartland yarn in the colorway, Glacier Bay 

Not being excited about the 2x2 ribbing above, and thinking I might try a provisional cast-on to get a smoother edge on the ribbing, I went searching on YouTube for the perfect tutorial.  I did find some good ones, but before I actually committed to trying the provisional cast on, I came across the concept of knitting a "double-thick brim" using only knit stitches.  

What?  No purl stitches?!?  No special cast-on?  And I can get a smooth edge on the bottom of the hat?

These two tutorials convinced me to give this a try, and I  LOVED it:

Wolly Bear Knits

yokieB Crochet and Knit

Using yokieB's tutorial and scrap yarn, I knit up this small child's hat:

Knit with different brands of pink worsted acrylic.

The hat above is more of a slouchy style, but the double brim is so soft, it can be folded up to make a fitted  beanie.  This hat also turned out pretty small - likely to only fit a baby or toddler.

Having success knitting a double brimmed hat (albeit a small one), I couldn't wait to get started on a larger beanie with more subdued colors:

The plan at the moment, is to start this as a double-brimmed hat, but finish with the decreasing rounds found in the Benefaction Hat, instead of the gathered top of my pink double-brimmed hat.  I plan to put pom poms on any hats made with gathered tops before sending them on their way.  Pom poms assembly-line-style will be the last step in my hat making.

~~~~~

So now, on my growing list of things to try (when I'm not working with a goal of production over learning new skills)...

Provisional Cast-on to create a single layer brimmed beanie

Stranded colorwork 

Interesting patterned decreasing rounds for beanie crowns

That said, I'm already itching to get back to crochet.  Isn't that always the way it is...   

Or am I the only one who's so easily distracted?

  

Doilies and hats...

Crocheting and knitting a little over the last couple of weeks, I made two more of "99 Little Doilies".

Crocheted in Artiste #10 thread in the color "Peach Ivory"

Tiny little doily #31 doesn't really inspire me at all, but it will be a fine addition to a collection of small doilies in a few different colorways that I hope to finish and display together some day - even if just on a table top.

Doily # 22, crocheted in Curio #10 thread in the color "Hawk"

It wasn't until I saw this dark gray doily in a picture that I saw what I imagine to be a round stained glass window without the stained glass.  So I named this "Lead Rosette".  So glad I decided to skip all the picots in this one.  They would have driven me crazy, and I like the edges on this so much better.

~~~~~

Another project has presented itself, and sounds enjoyable - as long as my neck doesn't go back into "stiff mode".   Last month we attended a volunteer dinner (as quests) where youngest son, Ben, attends a church that hosts a community  food distribution.  That night they announced they also plan to host a toy/hat/blanket giveaway in early December - and they were "calling all yarnies" to knit or crochet hats.  I placed a loose mental sticky note in my mind that I could knit some hats to donate, but honestly, it wasn't until Ben mentioned it a week or so ago (just on the chance I might be interested) that I got a bit more serious about it.

Knit and crocheted hats can be great easy projects - taking just a few hours each - some less.  At least that's how I remembered it...

Well, this weekend I started with knitting a simple Benefaction Hat, and decided I'd add some colorwork after watching a few YouTube videos to see how it's done.  I thought I'd do a "fade" pattern with several colors.

The "fade" is where things started getting a little challenging.  The concept of stranded knitting (especially on this level) is simple enough, but I need a lot of practice to get my stitches and tension more consistent in that part of the knitting.

To a non-knitter's eye, I'm not sure this looks all that bad, and some of the unevenness can be blocked out, but I don't think I have it in me to finish this.  And I'm not sure I like the colors I chose, so there's that, too.  I may hang onto it, and use it as practice later, but since the more immediate goal is to actually produce some hats (not improve my knitting), I'm moving on.

I looked back at my Ravelry project page, and I see the last hat I crocheted was in September of 2020.  The last hat I knit was almost a year before that.

Armed with that knowledge, I suddenly feel kind of rusty and am wondering if volunteering to make some hats was a good idea.

Ah well...   the evidence will present itself here over the next 4 weeks.  I've pulled out lots of colors of yarns from my stash, and I've given myself a goal of wrapping up hat making by mid-October.  Come October 13th, I will either be relieved to be done, or feeling very satisfied with what I accomplished - maybe both.  Either way, it does feel good to have a purposeful project to throw myself into.

 

I gots hats...

With my first  helix knitted hat finished...

This photo shows the colors much more correctly than last week's

I immediately starting making another hat.  While I'm still fascinated with helical knitting, on my way to gathering more colors I noticed a lone skein of pretty ombre yarn that looked like it might just  be perfect for making a hat or two.  With no yarn changes, or any thinking required, I whipped up a second hat fairly quickly:

The pattern for all these hats is Benefaction Hat - a free download from Knit Picks.com

and here is a video tutorial for the Benefaction Hat.  

It might have been a little too easy - as it became a tad boring.  So I decided it was time to try helix knitting again - this time with more than two colors.  Needing some more help with that, I found this video simple and immensely helpful:

Wanting to use up some superwash wool, I gathered the colors I have and started knitting.  I wasn't so sure about the colors I put together, but as they all went round and round the whole thing took on very 1960's vibe. The decade of my childhood.  In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if my little brother had a striped t-shirt with these exact colors.    I have no idea if anyone else will like it, but I'm kind of diggin' the retro vibe here:

And that was it!  Three hats finished.  I'm sort of itching to start a cross stitch project, but then I see all the crochet WIPS I have hanging around in baskets...  Finish something or start something new?

As I go and contemplate that question, let me leave you a fun video of The Piano Guys.  You've very possibly seen it before, but it's so worth watching again:

~~~~~

Hats & scarves are finished!

Finally - here is the happy result of a month and a half of knitting and crocheting kids' and teens' hats and scarves:  

As much as I enjoyed making all the above, it's very good to be finished.  

In the end, there were two or three hats that didn't make the grade, but those provided some good learning experiences and that counts for something.

Now they all just need size labels attached and to be dropped off where they will, hopefully, eventually find noggins and necks to keep warm this winter.  

I'm seriously liking those scarves with the furry pom poms - I may have to make one for myself this winter.  😉

To see what other YOPers are up to, visit our group on Ravelry.

2018 Stash-busting progress:  48.73/ 100 skeins

More hats...

Not a lot going on this week except having some plumbing repaired.   The good news on that front is that every single faucet in the house has now been replaced (and a couple have been replaced for the second time).  Counting the repeats, that's 9 faucets!  Eleven, if I count the two outside faucets.   That is over the course of 20 years, though, so it's not as bad as it first sounds.

A not-very-busy-week meant I got to spend a fair amount of time knitting and crocheting hats.   They are accumulating for the hat drive coming up in less than a month.

I do love the ease of the Benefaction Hat pattern.  I still enjoy making it:

And after digging through my stash for some self-striping yarn I think I'm going to enjoy making even more.  The following is Deborah Norville Everyday yarn in the colorway Red Rocks:

I am of course complicating things by removing that beige-y pink color (you can barely see it up there in the wound-up ball).

I'm looking forward to trying out a few more self-striping yarns I just happened to have single skeins of.



And I do still love a crocheted hat.  I made another Stepping Textures hat in a gold yarn:

When I get them all done (some will need pom poms) I'll try to create a collage of all the hats.  For now, some teaser pictures will suffice.

To see what other YOPpers are up to, visit our group on Ravelry.

Doilies and hats...

I missed my YOP buddies last weekend, but we were enjoying a bit of traveling.  First on the docket was taking our middle son some furniture.  It was so good to see him (and a little kitten he had recently adopted 😊).  When we considered that once we got to his place, we were nearly half-way to friends in Michigan, we made plans to visit them, too.  It was a fun, if rainy, weekend and we caught up with each other, laughed 'till we couldn't catch our breath, and went to bed a lot earlier than we used to.  Somehow we'd all gotten older in the years since we last saw each other...

Because our friends had recently moved into a new house, it occurred to me that some doilies might make a nice little housewarming gift for my girlfriend.  I decided to give her the autumn colored Summer Splendor I made a few weeks ago, and I got busy making two more. 

I made another Winter's Breath Doily, this time in a gray color of Artiste thread called Coin:

I know it pretty much looks white in a photograph, but it's actually a nice shade of gray.

And I had been admiring this small doily called Octoberfest, but I knew I wanted to make it in a red color because I think it looks kind of Christmas-y:

The outer edge looks darker than the center, but it's all the same color (called Jam) of Artiste thread.

The doilies were a hit, and I can't believe I haven't tired of making them.  So stay tuned!

~~~~~

Doilies may have to get in line, though because wanting to make some hats for a hat/scarf drive coming up in early October, I'm finally getting a little more focused on that.  This year, I'm adding knitted hats to my crocheted ones.

First, a crocheted one - called Stepping Texture:

This is an easy pattern that can be made to fit any size head and with any size yarn as long as one starts the body with a stitch count that is a multiple of 5.  I made several of these last year and I'm happy to say it's a pretty enjoyable pattern. 

As far as knitting goes...  while I'm eyeing some colorwork patterns, at the moment I'm still practicing knitting in the round by making simple stockinette-stitched hats, but playing around with different yarns:

I love the Premier Sweet Roll yarn these are knitted in (colorway is Black Pepper Swirl).  I find it very easy to work with.

While I love the Sweet Roll yarn, I did begin to get tired of gray, so I went digging for something brighter.  This lone skein of Willow Wash  yarn in the colorway, Cherry Heather fit the bill:

Pom poms will be added to some of my hats later.  Or not.  I'll figure that out after I've made more and if I decide to crown any with poms, I will do it assembly line style.

And that's all from me this week.  To see what other YOPpers are up to, visit our group on Ravelry.

I knit a hat!

Remembering this past week that I wanted to complete a knitted project for an August KAL (in the Red Heart Lovers' group on Ravelry,) I put down my tiny crochet hook and thread and set myself to knitting a hat.  In this C/KAL we were to challenge ourselves to do something that was new to us.

Well...  I'd never knit a hat (so that was new), and since I'd never knit in the round before, and I'd never used DPNs, I looked for a video to walk me through these things.

I found the Benefaction Hat (from Knit Picks):

I was actually surprised at how easy it was to knit on 16-inch, size 6 circular needles.  And then I got to the DPNs at the top.  My yarn (Red Heart Soft) was very splitty, so that was problem #1 when trying to decrease, and then my stitches started slipping off my DPNs.   Ugh. 

It became  a royal mess, but somehow I pulled it all together, and closed her up and I can at least say I finally knit a hat.

Now...  If the front was all there was, I'd be happy enough. I could cover the messy crown with a pom pom.  

Problem #2, though, is something I can't fix or disguise.  I simply can't stand the jogs that my color joins created, and I don't know what happened with the top stripe.  I tried to use a jogless joining technique there, but clearly I didn't understand something.  I know y'all will be encouraging, but I'm disappointed with the back:

That said, I'm super pleased that I finished it, and I immediately jumped into making another one:

I'm using a self-striping yarn (which is giving me really wide bands of different shades of gray so color jogs are not an issue), and most importantly, the yarn doesn't split!  This second yarn is Premier Sweet Roll yarn in the colorway Black Pepper Swirl.

This will be a toasty hat!  And Ooh, how I wish I had other colors of this yarn, but I will not go shopping for more.  I can content myself making more gray striped hats until I tire of the pattern.  Or combine colors on my own to make large bands if that's what really floats my boat.

The truly important thing for me to remember here is...  I knit a hat!!!  

~~~~~

Other things I worked on this week included a teeny doily, which is #10 in the book 99 Little Doilies:  

It's about 4 inches across.  And it's super simple, except for some twisted stitches (which didn't twist)  - in Round 6, I believe.  Not much to say about this one. 

I also started Doily #11 in the same book:

It just makes me too sad to refer to all these doilies as #10, #11... so I'm going to try to give them my own names (if they're worthy).  This one I'm calling Pineapple Square doily.   You can't see them yet, but there will (hopefully) be a pineapple on each straight side of this square doily.   I plan for this one (and maybe some others) to be finished next time I make a YOP post.

And more hats.  'Tis the month to make hats.  Knit hats, crochet hats.  I want to make hats.

And that's all she wrote!  To see what other YOPpers are up to, visit our group on Ravelry.