Constructing the Helmet Hat

Vogueknitting Holiday 2011 issue included a cabled helmet hat designed by Deborah Newton that immediately caught my eye and prompted me to purchase the issue via my iPad to get the instructions.(Later purchased the paper copy when I found it too. You can see why here.) I searched for some affordable yarn with which to make the hat and found a City Tweed Aran with many color choices at Knitpicks which resembled the yarn in the issue's photo.

Knitting the hat turned out to be just as addicting as knitting socks. You've got to make another just to see how it looks in THIS yarn. I've got a stash of Three Irish Girls yarn all of which I think would look stunning turned into this hat. So probably be more to come.

The first hat was knit for Pam who also loved the hat and ordered City Tweed Aran in Jacquard yarn with me if I would knit the hat for her. So I did. Then came one for my sister in law in Three Irish Girls Wexford Merino Silk in Seaglass (she is a collector of seaglass along Lake Superior's shore)followed by two for friend Patty who wanted them as gifts for her sister and niece, one in City Tweed Aran Jacquard and one in Three Irish Girls Springvale Super Merino Rhys. The blue came out so striking that I had to try it again and also in Three Irish Girls Wexford Merino Silk in Gretel just to see how those fabulous colors would look.

Everyone who got the hat was interested in how the hat was constructed so I took some pictures of the process this last time.

The base of the hat is the band which is knit from a chart and done in one piece, then sewn together. (After the third time making the hat, I turned the chart into written words and placed a blow up of the cable stitches directions in the corner which really sped up knitting the band.) Stitches are then picked up around the bottom of the band, knit and then increased in the next row and knit then bind off and sew side edge seam.



After the band is completed and sewn into the circle, stitches are picked up on the front of the band and the center panel is knitted until it is twelve inches long in a repeating 4 row twist cable pattern, then decreased as per instructions to fit the back band area where it is stitched down.

Back view of panel stitched down to the band:



Front view after panel is knit and stitched down:



After sewing down the center panel, you are ready to pick up stitches along each oval earflap.



Pick up stitches along the earflap and knit the 4 row textured rib pattern until you have 4 repetitions of the pattern. Then do the decreases (you can stay in the textured rib pattern for this, or just follow the stitches for a ribbed pattern for a plainer look which adds one more texture to the hat.) Either way looks fine.



Stitches picked up and knit on one earflap. When decreases are completed and cast off, this is one completed side.



This shows the wrong side of earflap textured rib pattern:



This shows the right side of textured rib pattern:



Second earflap textured rib pattern completed:



After completing the second earflap side, I find the center of the center panel, and the center of the picked up earflap and pin them together with the right side facing out, pinning from back to front on each side. Then stitching from back to front matching stitches where possible to get the smooth curved shape. (I've also done it from front to back, but seem to get better results going back to front. Is it because I'm right handed? Who knows?) All I did find out is that starting stitching from either the front or the back, be sure you do each side from the same place to avoid a twisted, wonky look requiring one to rip and redo the stitching.



Voila..the helmet hat is completed.

In City Tweed Aran in Jacquard (I made two of these)



In Three Irish Girls Wexford Merino Silk Seaglass



In Three Irish Girls Merino Silk Wexford Gretel



In City Tweed Aran Rhubarb


Three Irish Girls Springvale Merino Rhys (I made two of these)


And now I"m off to start another...hat, sock, what will it be? Hmmm...decisions, decisions...

Works in Progress

I have these two works in progress along with an afghan that it is getting chilly enough to get back to...but I don't have enough hands! My fingers are itching to get the projects done because I have a long list of others I want to try.

The progress on the hat (knitting it in Knitpicks City Tweed in Jacquard) found in Vogue Knitting Holiday 2011 issue was interrupted last night when I finally updated the ios on my Ipad2. Despite the fact that I synced my device, and backed everything up before updating the ios, when everything was updated and restored, the Vogue Knitting issue was not there, and in fact, the app itself wouldn't function. After a moment of panic, I searched and found the support link and emailed the app help address given, but there was no more knitting last night. Thankfully this morning I had a response and following the instructions restored the app and access to my purchased e-issue of the magazine. Whew!

Paper has a lot going for it, in my opinion. No electronic gremlins when you purchase the paper form.

Serendipity

According to Wikipedia, serendipity is when someone finds something that they weren't expecting to find. It's one of those small pleasures that can just make your day a little brighter.

My serendipitous moment this week came in the form of an article in my Facebook news feed titled "Margaret Atwood on Knitting a Great Auk in the Arctic." As an English major, librarian, birdwatcher, and knitter, you know I had to read the article just because of the juxtaposition of such unlikely terms.

It turns out that Margaret Atwood is an avid believer in the preservation of bird species and had been asked to contribute an artwork to an exhibit highlighting birds that have become extinct. Most of the hundred plus artists contributing to the exhibit did their art in paintings, drawings, and prints. Since she is also an avid knitter, she wanted to use wool as her art medium. And there, buried in the middle of the article was the method she used to get a graph of the auk she needed to craft her knitted piece. Just a tiny little mention of a tiny little program available free online to turn your image into a graph suitable for knitting or cross stitching. Whoa! That snapped me to attention!

And here's why:

I'd knit a table runner or wall hanging canvas (I hadn't yet decided which) a couple of years ago. A friend had provided me with a photograph of a lighthouse that I wanted to turn into a graph and stitch onto the canvas I'd knit. But I needed to find a good way to do that. I didn't want to buy an expensive program to do it. I tried various options that seemed possibilities but none really did the job I wanted it to do, so I put the project aside and moved on to other things.

The free online Web2.0 app she used for her graph is Knitpro and I found it with a simple Google search. There are a few easily adjustable settings for you to get the size and direction you want for your graph.

This is the lighthouse I needed to get a graph of for my planned project:




This is a screenshot of the graph generated by Knitpro that I saved as a jpeg and cropped so I could show you what Knitpro did with the image. What Knitpro generates for your use is a pdf that you can then print. What's great about it is that the lines on the graph are numbered to make it easy to follow.



And this is the blank canvas I knit with the plan to stitch a lighthouse on it, painted with stitches, so to speak.




Now thanks to the serendipitous discovery of this little gem of a program, I am now prepared to finish my own artwork using cotton yarn on my knitted canvas.

A Gift for a Lifetime

I found this quiz in a newsletter that I get regularly promoting their products. Just for grins, I took it because I'm curious about this topic. I wasn't that surprised that the greatest percentage of those taking the quiz learned how to knit from a parent or grandparent.



I learned to knit a long time ago (I think I was about 8 years old) from my paternal grandmother Donelda, or "Dee" as she was known to her friends. She was always knitting, sometimes alone, sometimes with friends and seemed to enjoy it so much that it seemed interesting. I loved the mittens, hats, slippers and sweaters that she made from the balls and skeins of colorful, various textured yarn and wanted to know how to do it too. How did these things get made from just needles and string anyway?

Knowing how to knit has brought much pleasure to my life throughout the years. In college it was a respite from study and allowed creativity to flourish. I knit afghans and slippers mostly then, easy enough projects that allowed relaxation and not much thought. As life has gone on I've moved on to other types of projects and built my stash of yarn. Seeing the vibrant colors and various textures gives me visual pleasure as does the thought of turning it into various projects that people will use. I've been making socks as small gifts for friends and co-workers, hats for friends who are getting treatment for cancer, slippers for friends to give to a parent. Knitting is a peaceful way to while away long winter nights. There's satisfaction in seeing a project you like and learning how to make it on your needles.

My grandmother told me she was taught to knit by her mother. She passed on that learning to me and I think about that transfer of learning through generations often. Though she's been gone for many years, I hope my Grandma Dee knows how much pleasure that the craft she taught me so long ago has brought to my life through the years and how much I appreciate the patience it took to teach me to knit. I think of her with love every time I pick up my needles.

A New Kind of Puzzle

I've always loved puzzles of any kind. Recently I've been doing lots of knitting and when a friend found out that I can knit socks, he brought me this sample slipper and asked if I might be able to make one like it. A knitting puzzle seemed a challenge that might be satisfying to attempt.

I looked the slipper over and seeing that it is similar in many respects to the socks I've been knitting (42 pair of socks knit since last October) told him I thought I might be able to do that. I asked him if I could keep the slipper as a point of reference, and he reluctantly let me keep it after I promised to take very good care of it. (It's old with a lot of sentimental value attached to it.) Searching for a pattern online proved fruitless, so I sat down with the slipper making notes about how I might go about replicating it. How many stitches? What kind of yarn? What size needle? What kind of heel? What is that toe style? These were just a few of the pieces of the puzzle. After much trial and error and a LOT of ripping or frogging, making notes as I went, I finally came up with a reasonable facsimile:




And here they are together.



Now I need to word process up the pattern, make a few little tweaks by knitting it again once or twice. (Pairs, of course, so the time won't be wasted.) I want to get the depth of the foot just a tiny bit narrower. I should be able to accomplish that by either dropping a needle size, or by knitting a couple of stitches together to decrease the number of rows around.

Along the way to solving the puzzle to make my friend some slippers for his mother like the ones made by his grandmother, I learned how to turn a Dutch heel and to finish a modified French toe. There was a lot of satisfaction in solving this slipper knitting puzzle as well as more than a little learning.

Watch "Arthur Unravels"

Cute video...knitting is for everyone...maybe I need to start watching some cartoons again.

Using a French Knitter

Darn It!

Since I've been on my sock knitting binge since October and have knit more than 30 pairs of socks, this video which I found on the Knitpicks web site and Youtube Channel is probably something I will have need of sometime.

The Knitpicks site looks like it has some good information and tutorials for beginning knitters as well.

4 Dpns

All things electronic have been put on hold recently with the wintry snowstorms we've been getting rather regularly. Instead, with the inspiration of my friend Hollaye, who decided she wanted to learn to knit socks and found a knitting tutor to help her, I've also been learning to knit socks. I'd tried to knit them before, but my knitting tension is so loose, I would lose the doublepointed needles; they would just fall out of my stitches. So I gave up. But with the basic pattern Hollaye got from her tutor, and a determined effort to control my tension, I am finally knitting SOCKS! on 4 double pointed needles.

This may have been a mistake, because it seems to be addicting. I don't know if it's a passion for knitting socks as Hollaye claims, or just wanting to have warm feet. Handknit wool socks + wool clogs=warm feet. And that is not a bad thing in NE Minnesota or Michigan's Upper Peninsula.

















If you've a desire to learn to knit socks, I found a very helpful tutorial online Silver's Sock Class. It has good step by step illustrations if you need a visual reference and I found it a great help.

Read with Marge McPeak

 

Marge holds a little poster that Brian Minor the ALS graphic artist whipped up quickly this morning. He took a photo of Marge against a blank wall & put the background in later and printed it. It was Marge's last ALS Board meeting as president.

Marge (a former NCLC Board Chair as well) shared an acronym with us (we librarians just love acronyms; Marge is a retired librarian): SABLE - Stash Acquistion Beyond Life Expectancy, which is managing to acquire more yarn than you can possibly use up in your lifetime.

I don't think of it as a problem so much as a goal.

How to Do the Mattress Stitch

Making the Best of Brrr

There's an intrepid group at work that usually walk together on their break to get some exercise and fresh air. Only heavy rain and cold deter them. The recent subzero temperatures have made it impossible to walk outside so they've decided to make the best of a bad situation.


They are using their break time to learn how to knit. Paula and Rita know how to knit and are giving lessons to Pam and Roxanne, the novices who are catching on very quickly. They have begun with a scarf as their project.



Hollaye joins them, working on her penny rug project.





Roxanne and Paula multitask, playing their Scrabble game along with knitting. They usually play Scrabble during their lunch break, so it's an ongoing game.







They've found the perfect way to take their minds off the miserable cold, by doing something together in congenial company.



I call them the Knitting Bee. They may not all be knitting projects, but they are knitting the fabric of friendship, sharing, and collegiality. It may be cold outside, but you can feel the warmth in the break room when they gather there.