F.O.: Hat #3

This past week I finished the third hat begun on our holiday trip. Again, an original design.

This post will be mostly pictures, showing how I grafted the two parts of the hat together.

I first knit the crown according to a method published some time ago in Threads. I cast on 29 stitches, the radius of the crown, and knit a triangle, decreasing on both ends of
the needle every other row. When there is only one stitch left on the needle, pick up stitches along the left side of the triangle, in this case, 28 stitches. Knit another triangle, decreasing in the same manner down to one stitch. Repeat the pick up stitches, etc. Do this until you have the number of triangles you want, in this case, six. For the last triangle, pick up and knit in one stitch from the right hand side of the first triangle every other row of the current triangle, and decrease it with the current decreases. That binds the triangles together into a crown.

This second photo shows the band which was knit separately.

For the band I cast on 27 stitches, and worked in the following pattern:

a three stitch I-cord, p 3, k 6, p 3, k 6, p 3, end with a three stitch I-cord. Every eight rows I cabled the two k 6's.

Because they were knit separately they had

to be joined somehow, and I decided to graft

them together, rather than sewing them together.

Picture #3 is taken during that process. The work is done on the inside of the hat.

The left needle holds the crown stitches, which had been picked up from the outside of the triangles forming the crown. The right needle holds the one stitch in use from the

band.

Because the band has an I-cord edge I am able to pick up the inner half of the I-cord stitch without disturbing the cord itself.

Picture 4 show the left hand needle picking up the inner stitch from the I-cord, which is then purled together with the next stitch on the left hand needle.

Are you still with me?

Here you can see the two stitches

underneath the current stitch.

Now it's a simple thing to pass the 1st stitch on the right hand needle over the second stitch, binding it off. Proceed in this fashion until all the stitches on the left hand needle have been joined and bound off. Tie in the loose end after drawing it through the last stitch, and the hat is completed without tedious sewing!

Here's the finished hat. Kind of interesting, I

think! I like it, but, unfortunately, it was a bit too small to wear comfortably. So I gave it to one of my quilting friends whose head is smaller than mine.

I also gave away the first hat I knit on our holiday trip. It was also rather small, and I gave it to another friend on whom it was a better fit. I don't mind giving these things away. The fun for me is in the designing and the working out of the design.

Now I have to get busy on some mittens for two of the dear granddaughters who have birthdays in December. Remember the waistcoats from last year? Mittens will knit up so much more quickly than they did!