Wednesday, October 25, 2023

Holiday Knitting, round 1


 

So I'm making hats (and maybe scarves, if I'm arsed enough) for the in-laws for Christmas.  I made them slippers last year, didn't know what to make them, and they live in the Rockies so can you really have too many winter hats?  I decided to go with bulky yarn to get it over with in plenty of time.  I was going to go with wool, looked at the budget, realized that they don't know how to care for wool, really, and so here we are with the Caron.

I started with the pattern Snow Day by Jerry Burch, casting on from the bottom in the round on two circs.  After a few rounds I decided the space between the needles was way too large and ungainly, so decided to try again.  Version two was the same pattern top down, where I immediately screwed up the increases.  Version three was a crochet cast on from the middle, which ran into the same problem as version 1 with the added attraction of crochet casting on 72 damn stitches.  There had to be a better way.

Enter the Sideways Hat by Wooly Wormhead, only 32 crochet cast on, and no weird long bits at the corners.  So far, so good.  I'm even on gauge.

When I found the pattern in Ravelry it told me I had done this hat nine times before.  Nine.  This meant that nine times I tried to knit a hat in the round and gave up.  

I've learned two things here:

1)  I don't like knitting acrylic in the round.  Or bulky yarn.  Or maybe hats.  I do knit mitts and socks in the round, but for both of those I use wool.  I've also knit mittens in acrylic in the round.  So it's either the bulky or the hat bit.  Whatever, I don't like it.

2)  I tend not to learn from my mistakes.

Yarn is Caron Macchiato Cake in "Lovely", knit for my brother-in-law, because I sent my wife for yarn, told her to pick the color, somehow did not communicate "for her family" and she likely grabbed whatever was on top.  It's not suitable for either my MIL or FIL so the BIL gets it.

Pattern is the Sideways Hat by Wooly Wormhead

Size 8 aluminum needles.

No comments:

Post a Comment