Tag Archives: Mintyfresh

A big hat to fit a big head

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My very successful spiral hat with the textured brim inspired a spin-off. Chris has been bugging me forever for a new hat since one I made him a few years ago has stretched out so far that it’s now ginormous. Given that Chris’s head is already off the percentile charts in size for average adult males, that’s saying something.

Chris's textured hat

Isn't that dimple just adorable?

We took a measurement and his head is a whopping 25 inches around! And yes, it’s full of good stuff!

I didn’t really have a pattern for this and I had to call in some help from my friend Michelle, who is fantastic at knitting math and has far more experience than I do. The hat is done in Americo’s Peruvian wool, leftover from the Cobblestone sweater I made for Chris this past spring. The yarn is probably a heavy worsted weight (they don’t really have it labeled), and I worked it using 4.5 mm needles.

The texture is borrowed from MintyFresh’s Roman Earflap Hat, which is in turn from Barbara Walker’s first stitch treasury:

Round 1: *k2, sl1 wyib, k3; repeat from *, end k1.
Round 2: *p2, sl1 wyib, p3; repeat from *, end p1.
Round 3: *sl1 wyib, k3; repeat from *.
Round 4: *sl1 wyib, p3; repeat from *.
Repeat rounds 1–4 to desired hat depth, in this case, about 7 inches.

Chris's textured hat

View from the top

I was kind of stumped with how to deal with the decreases though. I couldn’t decide if I should just seam it somehow, or if there was a way to decrease it and still maintain the texture. I had already had a lot of trouble losing my place (I frogged several rows and still ended up messing up two rows, only noticing them once I was well beyond them, and there was no way I was going to un-knit that far back). The miss-knit rows are barely perceptible so I just let them go.

Michelle helped me figure out what to do. We agreed that it would be simplest to decrease this way: k25, k2tog, k2tog, repeated four times. I did this on each knitted row, reducing each section by two stitches (eg: second decrease row: k23, k2tog, k2tog, repeated four times) all the way to the end. After each decrease I aimed to pick up the texture as best as possible and happily you can barely discern any obvious changes at the decreased spots.

Chris's textured hat

Almost imperceptible mistakes (do you see the lines??)

Anyway, the boy is very pleased with his hat and I must say, he looks awful handsome in it. And he says it’s super warm. Mission accomplished.

Sparkly spirally warm goodness

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Silky Beady Spiraly Hat

Spirally silky goodness

I’ve been jonesing for an instant-gratification project JUST FOR ME for some time, and this weekend I finally found it. Every where I go I’m seeing people bundled in their oh-so-cute Peruvian woolly ear flap hats (a.k.a. Chullos), coveting them but knowing it would be a shame to buy one when I could knit something  just as cute if not better (and you just know that the people making those hats are likely not earning a fair wage for them). Not to mention I have a copious stash of luxurious yarns to choose from.

Silky Beady Spiraly Hat

Brim detail

As it turns out, what resulted in my search for the perfect project looks nothing at all like those ubiquitous hats, but I am totally alright with that. Because who wants to look like everyone else?

I was inspired by Not an Artist’s “Another Green Hat” in which she (Michelle) used up a super sexy but tiny quantity of Artyarns Beaded Silk she had gotten at the very first Knitty Yarn Roundtable (a.k.a Yarn Tasting). I too had gone home from that event with some Beaded Silk, but in a peachy-mauve-greenish colourway, with gold beads and gold thread. Like Not an Artist’s, its also been sitting in my stash forever. I had originally envisioned it to become Perdita from Knitty, but as it turns out, I had quite a bit of this yarn – much more than I would have needed for Perdita. And a hat is so much more showy!!

Silky Beady Spiraly Hat

Bead detail

I started off expecting to follow Mintyfresh’s design for her Roman Earflap Hat, but making use of the spirally yarn design by Not an Artist. Instead of the needle-size/guage in Mintyfresh’s design I opted to work on 4 mm needles and cast on only 108 stitches, like Michelle’s hat. The textured brim is worked with a double strand of yarn in a stitch pattern from Barbara Walker’s first stitch treasury (a series of books I really need to get my hands on), and then worked for the body and crown of the hat in a single strand of yarn. I had some leftover Dream in Color Classy in Cocoa Kiss from the Baby Yoda Sweater — a perfect colourway to set off the varied colours of the Beaded Silk.

I fully intended to do the earflaps and pom pom but as soon as I tried it on I knew it was perfect without them. And I’ve had nothing but compliments since I started wearing it!