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Thursday, January 19, 2012

Knitted Winter hats

  Since October when I made Alec his new winged hat,  I've been pretty excited about knitting hats.  For Christmas,  I made my Dad this black hat with grey and blue zigzag stripes.  It's a simple design,  but I think the pattern adds some nice variation.

All these hats have the same basic pattern.  Once I got the hang of making them to fit to a specific size,  I started a making a bunch.  All these hats start at the crown and work down.
Here are the basic instructions.  Begin by crocheting a chain of 4 stitches,  loop them together to make a ring.  Double crochet into the ring 8 stitches.  Pick up these stitches with double ended knitting needles,  2 stitches on each needle. Pick up an additional stitch at the beginning of each needle. 


Pick up and knit the red stitch to make the increase.
By grabbing this stitch the increase is snug and doesn't add any gaps like other stitch increases.  Keep adding stitches until you've reached the correct measurement.  For all these projects I used size 5 (3.75mm) double pointed needles and 100g/3.5 oz. medium worsted wool yarn. About 120 stitches was about the right size for to fit my head, but I highly recommend making a gauge swatch before you begin.  Once you get the right about of stitches,  keep working in the round until you have the hat depth you desire.  I made a point to make the stitch amount an even number so that I could make a 1x1 rib band.  I made the band twice as long so that I could fold it over.  I know these are not very descriptive instructions but it's the basic idea behind these hats.



This pink one is somewhat in progress,  I may not finish it.  I got excited using up scraps of yarn for the hearts and I like the colors but I don't have an intended owner so it may get unraveled.  It has the same zigzag pattern running down the sides. This one starts with a ring of 10 stitches instead of 8 to create the star pattern on the top.


I made this striped one after I lost a hat while in Somerville.  These aren't colors I wear all the time but I did like the combination and it's good to add some different colors into my winter wardrobe. Plus you can never go wrong adding a fun pom pom to the top of a hat.


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