Thursday, January 01, 2009

Simple Pleasures

Hi Knitters,
Well, this one is a winner, both the yarn and the pattern. The hat is called, Simple Pleasures and the pattern is here. (That is fake fur on my coat: )
The yarn is from my favorite indie dyer, Dani, at Sunshine Yarns. The colorway is called, Itty-Bitty Nursery and she made it just for me when I visited her in Boston a year ago. She over-dyed pink with blue to get shades of lavender and blue and purple. It is really pretty. Her yarn is squishy and soft and it feels so good. This is sock or fingering weight yarn. The pattern calls for a lace weight yarn but sock weight worked fine. The ribbed brim of the hat is worked with two strands of the sock yarn held together on size 8 needles. 
The crown is worked with one strand of the sock yarn and one strand of a thin mohair, I used Rowan Kidsilk Haze, held together. This section is worked on size 9 needles. The rib is worked for 6 inches and the crown is worked for 7 inches above the rib. It is worked on 16-inch needles throughout. That is 13 inches of hat, which is a lot knitting, but it is simple and fun knitting and you get a great hat in the end. I switched to dpns at the top of the hat but the pattern suggests that you can do the whole thing on 16-inch circulars. I couldn't do it but maybe it's possible.
I still have quite a bit of sock yarn left over. It is such beautiful yarn, both of them. The book, The Magic Hat, is one The Collector brought home from school. It's really cute.
How about this simple pleasure? I love it. I did two new stitches, the half-linen stitch and a slightly different version of a loop stitch. Love both of these and I will use them again. This pattern is in this book. I'll write more about these when I finish the second one. The yarn is Manos Del Uruguay wool.

I'll be back with the Taiyo Reversible Scarf pattern next.
Happy New Year, Knitters. I hope it is a good year ahead.
best, susie

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Great hat! I love the color. Did you line it?

Susan B. Anderson said...

No lining, it is the softest yarn ever. You could line it, though.

MichelleB said...

I love the hat and I love the scarf. I am not a knitter yet, but am going to take a sweater class in January, so I hope to become a knitter soon. I love the things that you knit, and can hardly wait until I think I might be able to actually knit some of the same things.

Katie said...

Happy New Year!

Dianne MacDonald said...

Wow! I can't believe how you are cranking the knitting out these days! You are so inspiring. You make me want to knit everything you do, but I'm way too slow to keep up. Love the hat (and I'm nearly finished with your version of the cabled slouch hat) and the scarf....can't wait to put that pattern in my to-do stack.

Anonymous said...

I had been wondering if it would be possible to do that hat with some of Dani's yarn - thanks for answering the question for me! Love the colorway she created for you too - doesn't she have the best sense of color?

Anonymous said...

Gah! That is so cool! I'm so happy you found a sweet hat pattern to work it up with. I probably should make a few of those - I have all these half balls of kidsilk haze and well, plenty of sock yarn :) Wishing you and the family a wonderful 2009!

Hilary said...

What a great thing to make with sock yarn... for someone like me who doesn't (yet) knit socks! I have a few skeins of sock weight that I bought on vacation in California last year because I just loved the colorway. Now I know what I'll use them for. :-)