Basic Earflap Hat

Otherwise known as FO #93. I had a skein of Pastaza in my stash that I didn't know what to do with, and I'd toyed with knitting hats to send to this program in the fall. I relied heavily on this pattern when I started knitting earflap hats, but I changed up a few things and rarely use a pattern any more....but I wrote this one down as I knit it up.

(Note that in the pictured hat, the earflaps are 4" and the main part of the hat is 4". I changed the pattern to reflect what I discovered when finished -- the flaps are a bit too long, and the length would be better used as part of the hat proper.)



Supplies:

• about 100g of heavy worsted weight yarn (I used Cascade Pastaza, but you can use any yarn that knits to gauge)
• at least three DPNs and a matching 16" circular needle (I used US8, but again, you can use whatever knits to gauge)
• one stitch marker

Gauge: 3.5 stitches per inch in stockinette stitch

Ear Flaps
CO 7 stitches.
Row 1: K1, P to last stitch, K1.
Row 2: K1, Kfb, K to last 2 stitches, Kfb, K1.
Repeat these two rows until there are 15 stitches on the needles.

Knit straight until piece measures 3.5".
Cut yarn, leaving a 12" tail, and leave the earflap on its DPN.
Repeat for second ear flap.

Hat
Using a cable cast on, CO 10 stitches on the circular needle. Knit the 15 stitches from first ear flap, then CO 24 stitches. K15 from second ear flap, then CO 10.

(Confused? Here's a video that shows what I'm talking about!)

Join, being careful not to twist stitches, place marker and begin knitting in the round. As you knit around this first row, you'll notice four gaps, on either side of each ear flap. When you get to those, K2tog to close them up. At the end of the round, you should have 70 stitches on the needles.

Continue knitting all rounds until hat measures 4.5" from the cast-on row (or 8" from the beginning of the ear flaps). Then begin the decreases as follows, switching to DPNs or two circs (video here) when the diameter of the hat is too small for your circular needle:

(Decrease) Row 1: *K8, K2tog*
Row 2: K all sts
(Decrease) row 3: *K7, K2tog*
Row 4: K all sts
(Decrease) row 5: *K6, K2tog*
Row 6: K all sts

Decrease in this manner until there are 35 sts on the needles.
Then decrease in the same manner, omitting the "k all sts" rows, until there are 7 sts remaining.
Pull yarn through the last 7 sts with a tapestry needle, pull through to inside and weave in end.

Finishing
Weave in all ends. (I like to leave the tails where I ended the earflaps long so that I can use them to tighten up of otherwise correct anything that looks wonky around the earflap join area.)

There are a few ways you can add straps -- pick up 3-4 sts and knit in garter stitch or seed stitch until desired length. OR pick up 3-4 stitches and knit i-cord until desired length. OR, thread through three long pieces of yarn and braid the double-strands until desired length, then tie off and trim.

Block and lay flat to dry.

hey, that's my brother!

What I didn't get to see on my whirlwind visit to Seattle:

wooooooo

They're pretty much cleaned out now I'm guessing, but KnitPicks is having the sale of a lifetime (50% off all non-KnitPicks needles) and this morning I got a set of Denise interchangeables for $28 shipped!!! Absolutely unheard of!! The Addis were sooo tempting too, but I restrained myself.....

oh LisaP....

I was shooting for blues and greens, and I swear I tested all the colors and that dark-blue-lookin' dye came out looking blue. But wait, then it turned purple....



Anyway, a not-so-special prize, just for you. ;)

we have a winner!

Lisa P. correctly spotted the heinous error...she did have two advantages -- having knit Trellis herself (a silver medal KO project, very nice), and having me ten feet from her desk telling her if she was right or wrong. ;) Soooo...her prize will only be sort of special. Hee.

So, the error was that, in my zeal to follow the pink letters in the pattern (ensuring you are working edge stitches in reverse stockinette!) I inadvertently switched the left and right fronts. Silly wabbit, when you're working it as one piece, there are no reverse stockinette edge stitches. Only button bands. Worked in seed stitch. Which, in my work, were next to the side "seams" instead. Oops.

I'm telling you, knitting Darwin Award, right here.

I charted it out and tried to figure out if I could salvage it by adding button bands after the fact and dinking with the neck shaping, but you know, it was a little hairy and it would have bugged me forever. So....



Ouch, that hurt.

Deja vu...

uh oh

Around dinnertime yesterday, less than 48 hours from when I started it, I bound off for the sleeves of my Trellis. That's two and a half pattern repeats -- 51 rows -- 6,681 stitches -- so far. I was sooo proud of myself. Ha.

Then I noticed the mistake. It's a really, really big one.

I'm not going to go into the details here, because I feel like an idiot. It was one of those things where the whole time I was knitting, I thought, "hmmm, that's a little odd." But it wasn't until I stopped and took a good look at it that I realized what I had done. We're talking, if there were Darwin Awards for knitters, I'd be in the running.

To the untrained eye, not a huge deal. To me...well, I think I might be able to alter the pattern a bit to accommodate my glaring error. But I'm not sure that it wouldn't drive me completely crazy. I *so* should have waited for Jenny's spreadsheet.

Sooo...frog 5,563 stitches? Or keep going? Ack.

On second thought, I'll post a picture and the first person to identify the horrifying error will win a special prize!!

Trellis, take two

Ahhhh, much better:



I frogged the green. And wound my three skeins of natural 100purewool with my brand-spankin'-new swift. A much better choice!! I love love love knitting with this yarn. No more swearing. It was totally the yarn, not the pattern.

Ahhhh.

I had intended to dye this yarn, but it's just perfect for this sweater. It's every bit as scrumptious as Malabrigo, but a little bit lighter weight. If I could afford to buy enough to justify the shipping cost, I'd defenitely have a storage problem. I'm crossing my fingers for another co-op....

I am SO....

...turning into my mother, it's not even funny.



I thought this as I sat next to the window this afternoon (kids in the pool, don't you know), swearing like a sailor as I tinked more than I have in eons while working on Trellis. (My mother could knit any aran sweater on the planet. And love it and hate it at the same time.) It's frustrating -- getting used to the charts, adjusting the pattern on the fly, cursing my yarn choice -- yet as soon as I stopped, I wanted more.

Yup.

ETA: thank you Jenny!!

shameless plug

If you can, go on over and help a fellow knitter...who just happens to be a cancer survivor, and an 11-year-old boy...who would probably die if he knew I referred to him as a knitter... ;)

Relay for Life

What a week

To clarify, it was not my hard drive that died. I'm part of a tech support team and we've had two user hard drives flat out die with no warning in the past week, something I can only remember happening one other time in the past 10 years. I think that tonight, I shall listen to God's gentle prompting and back up everything on my hard drive.

And yes, I did knit while I was working last night -- but I promise, I did adjust my hours. I brought my knitting knowing that my project would have a lot of downtime...but seriously, I would have been sitting in front of the computer knitting if I was at home...I couldn't in good conscience bill for all the time I was there. ;)

So, busy work week. Hard drives, firewalls, blah, blah, blah. You know what that means...extra money! How could I resist spending a portion of my kidless afternoon at the LYS that's having a 40% CLOUSEOUT SALE on all Karabella, Elsebeth Lavold, and Catalina yarns???



(The Bartlett Farms bulky wool in Garnet Heather in the back (6 skeins!) is actually an online purchase. But I hadn't posted any pics so I threw it in this one.)

I resisted the Karabella Breeze...sigh....but I did pick up 3 skeins of Catalina Baby Pima and 5 balls of Cotton Patine...as well as a few stragglers from the sale room. Some Fixation ($1.75) and Baby Cashmerino ($2.80)...how could I pass those up? ;)

FO #92

See, aren't those decreases awesome??



Cabled Baby Beanie, size small
Knit in Cashmerino Aran (a little less than one ball) on US8 needles.
Pattern mods: knit in the round instead of flat. I'll never understand why people knit hats flat. But whatever floats your boat, I guess.

death of a hard drive

So, my evening was spent staring blearily at a computer that wasnt moving anywhere near as fast as I wanted it to. I knew that's what I was in store for, so I brought some yarn. (I pulled it out and cast on 80 stitches around the time I realized that my 46 critical updates were going to take almost an hour to download. Gah. And that was just the beginning.)

I finished a sock this morning, and nothing else that I'm knitting is thrilling me very much, so I decided to whip up SweaterBabe's cabled baby beanie. Ca-ute! The picture doesn't do it justice, but then again there's not much natural light at MIDNIGHT.



The decorative decreases on the top are adorable, you'll have to take my word for it or go see the Sweater Babe, 'cause I don't have a little head to put it on at the moment. In fact all heads large and small are in bed here, and I'm going to join them...zzzzzzzzzzzzz....I'll post a better pic and the FO details in the morning...

Cursed

Anyone else ever have a cursed skein of yarn?? Actually it's about a skein and a third. KnitPicks Decadence (color: grape), which I adore and have knit several items with...but this particular skein and a third appears to be cursed. I've had to frog it like four times. It's almost been several scarves, something else I can't quite remember, and most recently, an Anthropologie-Inspired Capelet.

I reeeally thought the capelet was the "one"...the gauge was different but I adjusted it and all seemed to be going well...until I ran out with about six rows left to complete.

*sigh*

I really don't want to frog it, but I don't want to order more yarn, 'cause that really defeats the stash-busting nature of the project, don't you think??

Would anyone like an almost-finished Anthropologie-Inspired Capelet??

yarn rescue

Remember that completely fug sweater that I recycled?

On Saturday I washed and dyed the wool. It was a bit disappointing, as it looked gobsmackingly beautiful in the sink during the final rinse. Really, it took my breath away, in all its deep purple-violety goodness.



Unfortunately when it dried it was 10 shades lighter than it appeared when it was underwater. I briefly considered dyeing it again, but yeesh, this process has gone on long enough. And, knitted up, it's still quite nice....just not as nice as I initially thought it was.



Also? I don't like big yarn or big needles any more. I'm knitting this on US13s and it's totally killing my hands.

FO #91

Jodi asked if my fingerless gloves count as FO #91...um, technically yes, but they were so quick and I'm really too lazy to do a separate post for them. (Some li'l FOs just don't make it into the count.)

So here's my designated FO #91:



The boring stuff:
Infant set, socks based on Cat Bordhi's Baby Life Ring Socks; matching hat -- no pattern.
Knit in Baby Cashmerino on US3 needles.
Pattern notes: I knit the socks top-down instead of toe-up because I started them in the car and was struggling with the toe-up cast-on. I tried to do a Sherman heel, which I got on the 5th try, but then (as happens with almost all short row heels) I didn't like the way it looked so I ripped it out and did a flap/gusset heel. I used the same technique for the hat as I did for the leg of the socks, then had to add in some color because I ran out of the yellow yarn.