Little 2 square baby hat

Today’s amateur* pattern is for a little 2-square baby hat (pattern section on the hat). Head diameter is for around 18″, so you may wish to size up in needles to adjust if the baby you’re knitting for is larger. I was knitting this for donation to a local hospital. *Note the word amateur. This pattern hasn’t been proofread or test knit. It’s just a recipe for what I did to make this hat.

Needles: US size 2 for the ribbing, followed by US size 1 for plain knitting rows. My gauge in the plain knitting section is:

Other tools: 7 stitch markers (one in a contrasting color for row starts).

Yarn: Baby Ull Dalegarn. Main color (mc): aqua blue (Farge: 7502, Parti: 6632). Contrast color (cc): lime green (Farge: 9013)

CO: 140 stitches in the round. Join.

Knit ribbing with cc: K4, P4 for 19 rows. (You might wish to knit longer for more of a cuff)

Join in mc and knit plain in mc for 18 rows.

Join in cc color and knit with cc color for 1 to 2 rows.

Start pattern:

Rows 1 & 2: mc K2, cc K2.

Rows 3 & 4: cc K2, mc K2.

Repeat pattern 3 times.

Pattern rows 13 & 14: mc K2, cc K2.

Knit 1 row in cc, adding stitch markers every 20 stitches. (It is helpful to have a contrasting color stitch marker for the beginning of the row.) 7 markers total.

Switch to mc: Decreases begin.

Decrease row 1: decrease stitches before and after each marker (14 decreases in total; 126 stitches left).

Knit 10 rows. Decrease row 2: decrease stitches before and after each marker (14 decreases in total; 112 stitches left).

Knit 3 rows. Decrease row 3: decrease stitches before and after each marker (14 decreases in total; 98 stitches left).

Knit 3 rows. Decrease row 4: decrease stitches before and after each marker (14 decreases in total; 84 stitches left). Add cc.

Knit 3 rows. Decrease row 5: decrease stitches before and after each marker (14 decreases in total; 70 stitches left).

Add/switch to mc: Knit 3 rows. Decrease row 6: decrease stitches before and after each marker (14 decreases in total; 56 stitches left).

Just weave in the ends, then put it in for a soak and lay flat to dry.

Knit 2 rows. Decrease row 7: decrease stitches before and after each marker (14 decreases; 42 stitches left).

Knit 1 row. Decrease row 8: decrease by combining 2 stitches each time, removing markers (21 stitches left). Then either bind off by pulling yarn through remaining loops or:

Decrease row optional: decrease by combining 2 stitches each time (11 stitches left) and pull yarn through remaining loops. Then you get to weave in the ends. (C) rjn, April 9, 2011

Sweet Norwegian baby cap

Was sighted on a friends’ FB page, so I guess it’s safe to reveal the picture now. Sadly, not with a newborn in it (the hat is too big right now, and baby doesn’t need to be in a blog — the kid’s Mom should decide when the kid gets a closeup on the internet). The gracious Miss Banister has offered to substitute for the baby in this instance, to give you an idea. The pattern is adorable, although I got distracted and ended up futzing some of the bind offs once I started the decreases (here’s a sample by someone else, who did a better job of interpreting the pattern). You’ll probably be able to see it pretty clearly either here, or on the version on flickr.

So, I have seldom ever knit anything without altering it or cobbling together some “fix” that seems good enough at the time but when I see it, the “fix” blazes with the white heat of a thousand, mortifying suns. (There’s at least one pair of baby booties that will never see the light of day. I just don’t think anything human could wear them. A goat, perhaps.) However, I think I might want to revisit the Sweet Norwegian Baby Cap, because it is a fun knit.

More gift knitting underway as we speak.

Christmas knitter confessions

OK, I’m curious. What are you looking forward to doing once the Christmas preparations are all done, people have unwrapped presents, and you no longer have deadline knitting?

Me, I have a pattern for mittens with birds on them. I have periwinkle and off-white yarn. And I have sticks. And I have very, very cold hands. Although I’ve recently heard enthusiasm from someone about what a pair of legwarmers could do in weather with snow above the bottom of the back door. So, after the tiny things created for tiny creatures are done… I will either have a case of finishitis and finish some of my other older projects. Or I’ll cast on for mittens. How ’bout you?

Knitting items that look like ISBN bars

You know those scanner bars that are found on packaging in the shops? You know, the ones with thick and thin lines that look like they’re some sort of code from caterpillars?

Back in the 80s, decade of skinny ties, Michael J. Fox, and Sheena Easton (whose style seems to have come back in the costuming of Rhianna, but nevermind), I had a dark blue shirt with dark black pinstripes (or perhaps it was a dark shirt that was pinstriped black and navy blue). It shimmered and flickered, possibly giving everyone a headache. And now that pinstripe look is back again, but changed a bit by the designers. So there’s the mermaid sweater from Hanne Falkenberg. This beauty as well (yummy rippled stripes). And this design for the wee set (Ravelry link right now).

I’m starting out small, to see if I like doing side to side designs. If I do, someday I may splurge on a Mermaid kit (purple/lilac/aubergine or black slate/cyclamen — it’s sort of delicious trying to decide without spending any money). But for now, between starting small projects and daydreaming about the time to complete my big projects, I’m back to knitting again. And it looks like pinstripes are in. Hurrah!

Noodling about, thinking about a dreamswatch shawl

I have some Koigu that I’m swatching today. I will see how the swatch(es) knit up (size 0 needles, but they’re square needles so the gauge is really small), and then think about what I want to do next. It may all depend on what the yarn feels like when it’s washed. Options include:

• Dreamswatch (7 to 15 repeats of the pattern) for a kind of shawl or stole if the yarn does not wash up to be as soft as I hope
• Socks (that’s a ravelry link — it’s for the Interweave Knits Windowpane socks, and would need a background color)
• A baby hat (no pattern in mind, but it needs to be soft!)

I kind of wish there was more olive in the yarn, because that would have made it visually fight less. It’s always interesting the difference between the nicely coiled hank and the yarn balled up or knit up. Of course, it’s always interesting to knit up items that have marinated for a long time in the stash drawer. I can’t remember which pattern I originally thought I’d do. So, think the dream swatch shawl would be a good idea?

Perseids and Camping

One August, I visited my friends up in New England. It was the sort of area where you could actually camp in their backyard (my friends lived on the outskirts of a really small town). It was a 2 week 5-sibling (from 2 families) gabfest, filled with trips to swimming ponds, long walks to the next town for ice cream, etc. We got to walk to the little town library and take out books (The Five Children and It by E Nesbit was a disappointment after the absolute magic of The Enchanted Castle), wrote ridiculous plays that we would actually read aloud, howling with laughter, and woke up early enough to see the mist rise off the grass.

One night, we were woken by my friends’ Mom at around 1 AM. Scratchy blankets were thrown over shoulders, and we stumbled barefoot onto the wet grass and looked upwards.

I looked and saw the stars falling from the sky, going in different directions. After a while, we all blinked sleepily at each other and went back into the tent to sleeping bags. The next morning, waking in the glow of the yellow tent walls, it was hard to believe what we had seen the night before

Every time I see a meteor shower, it takes my breath away. Last night/this morning, I stood on the porch to see a few stray meteors palely fall. The city lights are too strong here, and the cloud cover that was filtering away interfered too. But even so, I still got a tiny taste of the awe that thousands before me have felt. BTW: look up Perseids, and you’ll see that it refers to both the placement of the meteors (association with the constellation of Perseus) and in Greek mythology/history, it refers to the descendants of Perseus.

Perseus is associated in my head with Andromeda and sea monsters, thanks to a mythology project in 6th grade. So, the Perseids do have a connection with the Project Spectrum element, water, in a way.

Images of Andromeda and Perseus from Leighton (1891) found here: http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/walker/collections/19c/leightonAndromeda.aspx

Images of Andromeda and Perseus from antiquity found here (as well as a more modern view from “Clash of the Titans”): http://www.mlahanas.de/Greeks/Mythology/Perseus.html

(I did see “Clash of the Titans” when it was in the theaters. It has not held up well with time’s changes, even though it had Maggie Smith and Laurence Olivier. But I do remember the excitement of going to see it.)

Knitting stuff: I’ll be knitting a purple, cotton, Rusted Root for this element. The leaves might look a little bit like seaweed, but I doubt it. I might have enough yarn and gumption to actually make the puffed sleeves a little longer. I have to adjust the front and shoulders so it doesn’t choke the front of the neck. Since this is the first time I’m working a sweater from the top down, I’m kind of in the midst of math right now.