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...

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.

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.