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