Knitting: A Twisted Rib Stitch Hat with Colorwork
At the beginning of the year, I decided to set some goals for 2018.
1) Play the piano more
2) Be more productive in my handwork-- including knitting, spinning, sewing, crochet, and hopefully... weaving! My goal is a minimum of 1 finished project per month, which is absolutely achievable. So far, I'm doing ok.
In late December I cast-on a new hat for the kid, just a couple of days before our Christmas. I knew I wouldn't get it done in time for the holiday but hoped I might finish by our next weekend with her two weeks later... but life got complicated and difficult with health problems for a few weeks, and I didn't do any knitting. I picked this up again at the end of January, and wrapped it up on January 31.
I cast on 96 stitches with some lovely wool yarn scraps I'd picked up at the thrift store for a few dollars, using the blue for a 2x2 ribbing. I then transitioned to a twisted rib stitch alternating blue for the knit stitches and silver for the purl stitches. As I approached the crown, I divided the crown into 8 sections, placing markers every 12 stitches to keep track of my decreases. I decreased a single stitch after every stitch marker (8 decreases), every other round.
Note: I didn't use a pattern. I did a gauge swatch with the yarn, then measured the kid's head, and figured the number of stitches I'd need at gauge.
It was rather annoying to try and maintain the color work, but the kid said she didn't want the crown to be a solid color so I did the best I could. That meant that I shifted the color work left (following the twisted rib) each round, to the extent possible, sometimes reducing the color to a single stitch, or making other modifications. If you look closely at the first picture in this post, you'll see how it all came together. At times I had 4 stitches of a single color in a row instead of two, which meant a longer float, and I was worried it would like terrible when I finished. I figured I could just frog back a few rows if it did, but in the end, I was pleased! And the kid is too, which is all I really wanted.
1) Play the piano more
2) Be more productive in my handwork-- including knitting, spinning, sewing, crochet, and hopefully... weaving! My goal is a minimum of 1 finished project per month, which is absolutely achievable. So far, I'm doing ok.
In late December I cast-on a new hat for the kid, just a couple of days before our Christmas. I knew I wouldn't get it done in time for the holiday but hoped I might finish by our next weekend with her two weeks later... but life got complicated and difficult with health problems for a few weeks, and I didn't do any knitting. I picked this up again at the end of January, and wrapped it up on January 31.
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| Knitting at a work conference, to pass the time. Other essentials include salt, soda, and coffee. |
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| Also took my knitting on vacation to the Oregon coast with us-- knitting while in our little cabin. |
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| I started watching Broadchurch, and totally binged on it and finished the show in a single week. |
Since childhood, when I would stay up and watch Law & Order with my dad, crime shows have been some of my favorites. Weirdly enough, I find British crime/drama to be more enjoyable than most American crime shows-- less gory, more story, and suspenseful in a different way. Please share if you have any TV show recommendations for me, because I really do enjoy knitting and relaxing to something that distracts my mind from work stress.
Anyway, knitting...
I cast on 96 stitches with some lovely wool yarn scraps I'd picked up at the thrift store for a few dollars, using the blue for a 2x2 ribbing. I then transitioned to a twisted rib stitch alternating blue for the knit stitches and silver for the purl stitches. As I approached the crown, I divided the crown into 8 sections, placing markers every 12 stitches to keep track of my decreases. I decreased a single stitch after every stitch marker (8 decreases), every other round.
Note: I didn't use a pattern. I did a gauge swatch with the yarn, then measured the kid's head, and figured the number of stitches I'd need at gauge.
It was rather annoying to try and maintain the color work, but the kid said she didn't want the crown to be a solid color so I did the best I could. That meant that I shifted the color work left (following the twisted rib) each round, to the extent possible, sometimes reducing the color to a single stitch, or making other modifications. If you look closely at the first picture in this post, you'll see how it all came together. At times I had 4 stitches of a single color in a row instead of two, which meant a longer float, and I was worried it would like terrible when I finished. I figured I could just frog back a few rows if it did, but in the end, I was pleased! And the kid is too, which is all I really wanted.
Really nice! It makes me want to try knitting a hat again, but first trying crochet again 😉
ReplyDeleteI love British crime series, broadchurch was great. Others I like are: midsumer murders (more classic), Vera (Irish I believe), Sherlock (bet you've seen it all ready), scott & bailey, DCI Banks and Dalziel and Pascoe.