Coronet and more

I'm too tired right now to make up a witty (or witless) title. I finished C's hat last week. It's been washed, dried and shaved: this wool fuzzes somewhat with handling and pills after washing, but looks great (at least for now) once the loose bits get removed.

And here's the top.

Pattern

Coronet by Alexandra Virgiel from Knitty winter 2003.

Materials

Two skeins (approximately 77 grams) of Mission Falls 1824 wool in denim on US 7 (4.5 mm) needles at a gauge of about 5 stitches per inch after washing and drying.

Mods

I made the band using a horseshoe cable (same number of rows as the original) and worked a slipped stitch selvedge at each edge of the cable band. The hat was also knit up as a beanie, so I picked up stitches (84 stitches) for the hat body with the right side of the cable band facing out. I used C's most worn knit hat as a guide for diameter (10 inches, 25.4 cm) and depth (8.75 inches, 22.22 cm unstretched).

As you can see from the photo, C is on crutches. There was a snowboarding injury on Saturday involving his board edge and a rocky slope resulting in a fractured kneecap. It's funny, but I figured that I would get the first serious snowboarding injury around here. We spent a total of 10 hours (I'm not exaggerating in the slightest) getting him medical care; enough time for me to finish one mitten minus the thumb and start it's mate (I always have knitting when we go play outside, in case I need a break). I'll post photos later.

In other knitting news, I took the Kilim-style hot pad knitting class at Black Sheep weekend before last, and why not? I've done very little colour work and figured I could benefit from some advanced expertise. The tips I picked up will apply to stranded colour knitting as well.



The hot pad (main colour is Harrisville New England Highland, contrasting colour and backing is Cascade 220) we started as a sampler for a kilim-style mosaic knitted rug turned out fine, although it puckers a little at the sides. I'll have to carry the yarn more loosely next time. Since I did end up buying the rug pattern, I guess I'll have to practice.

The beginnings of a coronet

This hat has been featured twice before on this blog.



C asked me to make him something knitted, and I need an easier project to do when my brain turns to jelly at the end of the day. A couple of skeins of soft superwash wool that I bought last year in Saratoga Springs fit the bill nicely.

Coronet #2

So, I liked this pattern enough to make a second one. I made this one for myself. I used Naturally Sensation (70% Merino, 30% Angora) in lavender and it's really soft. I really enjoyed knitting with it since it's very springy (helloooo cables). I did some math to figure out how many stitches I needed, changed the cable pattern to one I found on an aran toque (5-fold braid) and used the Kittyville hat decrease (with more stitches) instead of the one in the Coronet pattern. I actually think that I would have been better off using the Coronet decrease. The goal in using the Kittyville decrease was to make it less puckered at the top, but I think that it ended up looking worse... But tolerable. I couldn't be too picky since I also needed a warm hat because of the bone chilling temperatures outside.

I also should have mentioned that I didn't make the hat anywhere near as long before decreasing as described in the Coronet pattern. Working 9.5 inches from the bottom band for hat #1 would only have worked if my sister's boyfriend was one of the Coneheads.

Coronet #1

Well, it was supposed to be one of my many handmade Christmas gifts, but this one didn't get finished in time. I completed it in January and gave it to my sister's boyfriend before taking a picture of it. In my haste, I forgot to... I was rushing since, well, baby it was cold outside and he had no hat. Anyway, I had them over to my place a few weeks ago to watch a few episodes of Smallville (one of my few guilty pleasures) which gave me an opportunity to finally snap a shot. I wanted a photo reminiscent of a hilarious shot I saw on "you knit what".


Except that he looks really happy instead of scared and dejected. Probably because the hat's just so amazing. Yeah... That's it....

Anyway, the pattern is Coronet from Knitty. I used the yarn specified in the pattern, which is Lamb's Pride Worsted. This was my first attempt at cabling and I'm pretty pleased with the results. It really wasn't as hard as I thought it would be.