Wednesday 29 November 2017

After a Grandma Knits some Mittens

After a Grandma knits some mittens, she has to face up to the fact that she is happy knitting mittens so she doesn't have to face up to the debacle of the last hat.


Before the lining went in, it looked fine.  After, not so much, and it isn't the inner hat which is the problem.  That feels comfortably close and right, but everything about the outside hat is wrong.  I think it is that the yarn is soft, too soft to carry the hat.  Maybe.  The colourwork section looks great though.  Really great.  It's going into the corner for a while, while it thinks about its fate, and I am going to have to knit another hat.

Thankfully a hat is a quick to knit item.

I started with the Ann Budd book, A Knitter's Handy Book of Patterns.     I debated about opening my tablet and finding another pattern, but the book was right there.  This is yet another lazy knitter me thing, but I think I would like to knit the top she has in the pattern.  It's a sort of adventure in hat patterns.


I am knitting a 1 x 1 knit purl rib to make a nice long fold back brim to keep ears good and warm.  After the brim is sufficiently long, I will switch to stockinette and will make a few stripes of the darker gray (like Marcus' mittens) just to give it a punch of style, and because, let's face it, I like knitting stripes.  And that will allow me to knit the top Anne uses in her book.  It's a more gathered look, softer, often with a pompon.  I won't inflict a pompon on the giftee, but maybe a tassel?

And then again, the idea of the topper, the goofier the better, makes me smile.  So maybe pompon after all.  Giant, giant pompon.  It would be a great way to use up all these bits of yarn I seem to gather.

Just a note to anyone out there who hasn't got these books in their libraries, why not?  Ann Budd's Knitter's Handy Books series  can put even the most timid knitter in the driver's seat of their knitting.  These good, basic and often not so basic patterns, are just the thing your knitting library needs.  Put them on your Christmas lists now.

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