I’ve been trying to get back into knitting with some quick and easy projects to use up the vast quantity of yarn holding up my bed. It’s no fun when even you know you shouldn’t buy any more. Plus, I really love making blankets, but you do have to wait a long time for the ‘finished project’ buzz – and I had promised Maddy a hat and scarf after making Fran a scarf while I was pregnant with Bene.
The hat comes from 101 Designer Yarn Stash Wonders which my lovely Mother in Law got me a year or so back – part of my resolution also involved trying to make some things from the many magazines and books I own. It’s knitted on 5mm DPNS and has a spiral pattern worked into it by purling blocks of stitches that change by 1 each time. I loved knitting it although I didn’t like using 5mm DPNS with the yarn I had chosen so much. I’m not clever enough to work out how to alter the size of it to make it knit-able on 4mm needles. It’s a 79 stitch round with a pattern that repeats on 11 stitches – is there a formula?
Anyway, the yarn is Adriafil Knitcol and it works beautifully on the beanie. I wasn’t sure on the instructions in the book and measured from the brim unrolled but I wish I had measured with it rolls and made it a little bigger. Maddy likes it though. It took about 2/3 of a ball.
The scarf is just a knit 2, purl 2 rib across 40 stitches on 4.5mm needles. Really easy and, with pattern matching, took about 2 1/2 balls. So you could easily make the 2 things in 3 balls if the scarf was slightly shorter (I had an OCD moment about having a matching line of the fake fair isle stripe near each end) which means they’d cost less than £13 to make. A result I’d say and she absolutely loves them.
If you don’t want to buy a book, I’m gradually collecting ideas for patterns for hats, scarves, gloves and socks on this Pinterest board.
Follow Merrily Me’s board Socks & Gloves & Hats on Pinterest.
To alter the size of the hat you need to find your pattern gauge on the 4.0 mm needles. Once you know how many stitches per inch you need you can then measure the person’s head in inches and multiply that number by the stitches per inch. As your pattern has an 11 stitch repeat the number you cast on needs to be a multiple of 11, I’d suggest reducing the number of stitches from your calculated number rather than increasing because knitting is stretchy and negative ease is good for hats.
It sounds more complicated than it is, honest!
The hat and scarf look great, I’ve only ever knitted one scarf, I don’t have the patience for all the turning back and forth. I knit shawls so they are wide and then just wear them like a bib!
I’ve been knitting for 7 years and I’ve just come across a pattern where my tension doesn’t match. I know I should be able to work it out… but it muddles my head. All I’ve done is try different needle sizes until my ‘square’ is nearly 10x10cm.
After 2 weeks I am re-starting a jumper, feeling a little demoralised but am going to stick with it as I do a ‘Knitting Fridays’ post on my blog each week and I’ve got to have something to say this week!!! Perhaps I’ll make it into a linky some day!
I’ve never knitted a hat or scarf… must add that to the list!