River Ripple Hat Pattern

I’m happy to announce that I’ve added a new free pattern to my site! The River Ripple Hat pattern (available by clicking on the image to the left or visiting the Patterns page) is finally complete!

The idea for this hat has been brewing for a long time. I knew I wanted something featuring garter stitch and cables with a brim worked flat then picked up along the edge.

This yarn was originally meant for a TARDIS hat, but after staring at it for months and using my successful Rose Red hat (knit in the same yarn) as an inspiration, I decided to knit a water-inspired hat for Spring.

This pattern is simple to work if you can knit cables, in-the-round, and take the initiative to find the length and fit that works best for your head. Because the pattern only includes instructions for a standard adult women’s size, a knitter looking to make a smaller or larger version will need to use their own judgement to adjust the gauge. That being said, any intermediate knitter should have not problem following the instructions and chart.

One of my favorite details of this hat, other than the way the simple four-stitch cable *pops* out of the garter-stitch background of the brim, is the fancy rhinestone buckle.

This buckle comes from a vintage sample card my mom bought me at an estate sale years ago. I’ve been looking for reasons to use it forever, and although my husband favored a simple button for the tab, I couldn’t resist adding some sparkle. Besides, this is a classy buckle. In 1951, this buckle cost $8. Calculate inflation into that and I put a shiny, $70 buckle on my hat, which is a testament to just how much I love this hat.

The pattern specifies that you can use any large buckle or button, but I’m so pleased that my hat features a classic detail that has some history. If I weren’t already married I could wear this as my something old and something blue!

I recommend using Blue Sky Alpaca Worsted Cotton in the Mediterranean colorway for this pattern, but any soft worsted-weight yarn with good stitch definition will work.

I hope you enjoy the pattern, and please visit the Ravelry pattern page to post any comments or questions.

I’m still here

I know I’ve been missing for awhile, but that’s because I’ve been knitting some socks and a shawl, and also designing this delightful blue hat. More posts and a pattern coming soon!

New Look, New Hat

This tam was the first project I've ever completed using beading.

This week I used a new knitting technique and gave my blog a makeover. I’m slow to accept change most of the time, but this is just refreshing.

The new knitting technique was part of my Garden Party Lights Tam, made from the Holiday Lights Tam pattern published in Interweave Knits Winter 2011.

Though “Holiday Lights” was a very fitting name for the golden hat featured in the magazine, I felt that my green-and-blue version, knit on the cusp of spring, better represents a sort of garden-party, crocus-bud kind of feeling.

Using the beading technique for the first time was interesting, but very easy to get the hang of. This technique involved stringing beads onto your yarn before knitting, then placing the beads on certain stitches for the pattern. This particular hat highlights the beads using a slipped-stitch bow pattern, which to me makes the beads look like little droplets of water sliding down a green bulb.

The yarn is Cascade Ultra Pima (DK / 220 yards) in the Olive colorway, and has been hanging around my stash for nearly a year now. I purchased it at Loopy Knit/Crochet in Missoula, but haven’t been pleased with any particular pattern I tried for it. I knew I wanted to use it for a beret or tam, an after several non-starts, this pattern seemed like the perfect fit. The yardage was also perfect for this project, and I have a little chunk left over that will go into my hexipuff stash.

The beads were purchased at my local Jo-Ann Fabrics and are Blue Moon 6/0 seed beads in a blue/turquoise color. For less than $3 I was able to buy enough beads for two hats, with each hat requiring 360 beads.

This hat will not be staying with me, although I hope to knit one for myself in colors more to my taste. This particular hat will be arriving in the mailbox of some lucky lady within the next week, and I hope she loves it.

As far as the new look for my blog, I wanted to spice things up a bit and draw more attention to some of the extra links I provide. I hope to add more original designs to my Patterns page, and the links under More Blogs are my favorite source of humor and inspiration.

I hope you all like the new look! Coming up: The Scent of Lavender.