Kim's Hats

I mentioned in an earlier post that I have been making hats for my friend Kim and I really needed to blog about it. So today I'm going to do just that. I'm proud of them, and what is a blog if not for gratuitous self promotion right?


Dark Grey Snapdragon Tam

So the first hat I made was the Snapdragon Tam by Ysolda Teague's book 'Whimsical Little Knits 2. When I lived in Scotland I always wanted to get this book, and the one before it. Ysolda is an Edinburgh lass and I actually met her once, woohoo! She served me in a shop. But anyway. Never got around to getting the books, but when I went back on holidays last September/October I grabbed them. So glad I did. OK, so there are shawls and I never really wear shawls, or scarves, or cowls, but they're so pretty I want to try. And the toys are adorable, and the little hedgehogs are just the cutest. But I made this hat and I swear I've never had so much fun knitting something. I kept staying up late to knit some more. And while there are mistakes with it (I didn't cross some of the cables the right way) I'm so bloody thrilled with it. It turned out so well, even if I do say so myself, and when I blocked it over a plate it just looked so lovely and Tam-shaped. I'm tempted to knit myself one. Hmm, maybe I could use the wool I got from Ally Pally for that beanie that I won't wear.


Anyway, pics.

Here we have the hat, all blocked out and drying and stuff. It's a little difficult to see all the cables on it because the wool is so dark, but they're there and they're lovely, because that's the way the pattern made them!





See? Lots of lovely little cables! These were the things that made me stay up and keep knitting. 

The white gap in the middle of that is the plate I block the hats on.

So you can see what the hat looks like on, here is my father wearing it. Yes I know it's meant to be a woman's hat, and to be honest it's a little small for his head (he has lots of brains in his skull) but I just loved it and thought he looked extra Irish (cos he is, sort of, but that's a whole different story).







Mid Grey Owl Cable

The next hat I made took me a while to figure out. I was going to knit another Ysolda one, but the wool wasn't right. I managed to get the right tension, but the wool I was using was way thicker than the wool suggested in the pattern, so the fabric worked out too stiff. I tried a couple of different patterns, but they never really seemed to work, so then I sat down and figured out a pattern myself. Moogi suggested the owl cable that has been seen around the place, including on Ysolda's blog here. I had drawn a wedge shape on some graph paper so I could space the cables, and then discovered that the owl fit perfectly into the space I'd allowed, and then did 8 of them in a row, and ended up with a hat. Once I finally got it figured out I made the hat in a day. Pretty impressed with that. I crocheted it together, rather than sewing it up, and hopefully that will make it actually stay done up. I'm not the greatest at crocheting, but I'm worse at hand sewing.

Maybe I'll try writing the pattern up one day, and who knows, somebody might want to knit it. If anybody ever reads this that is! Oh well. Oh yeah, and there are no buttons on the owls, so you can't really tell that they ARE owls. Kim's not really an owl person, so I gave her the option. This way they just look like cables. If I added buttons they'd look like birds. She told me that if they were cats she'd want them obvious (she's definitely a cat person). I am going to take that as a challenge, but not one to be completed this month!

The brim turned out a little loose (something I'll fix if I ever write up the pattern) so I just threaded some elastic through the rim. Shows you how chunky the wool is hey?








Cream Fern Glade Beanie

The final hat was Fern Glade, from Knitty. I had originally thought I'd do Brambles, also from Knitty, but Moogi and I thought that maybe Kim might want a break from cables. As it turns out, while she loves the Fern Glade pictures (she's not seen the finished hat yet), she really loved Brambles, and she wants me to make her a red one. That's not happening for a while though.

Fern Glade was actually pretty quick to knit. It only took a couple of days. I started it on December 31, so that it would be a UFO by the start of the new year. Moogi says this is cheating, but meh! At least I can cross it off my UFO list now. It was technically a tam as well, but Kim thought that she'd prefer it as a beanie, so I just didn't block it over my trusty blocking plate (an old dinner plate I found that I use to make hats that lovely tam shape). As I said, she's not seen this finished project yet, but she's seen it almost done, and seemed happy with it. So that's good. I'm glad she's going to be nice and warm around the ears when she's freezing on the walk to work at her new job in the mountains.

Now I want to knit myself a hat!