Friday, March 7, 2008

Braided today, blocking tomorrow

Awhile back, still in the throes of the fingerless glove frenzy, I had a hankering for braided cables. I was planning to try the Symmetrical Braided Gauntlets but held off because I was starting to learn that many of these patterns were not written for my skeletal hands. And while I'm willing to give away a pair or two, I intended to knit most of those suckers for my cold hands.

However, I was able to satisfy my desire to knit braided cables with a hat, and last night I finished a Braided Cable Hat:



The pattern requires a multiple of 11 stitches, 9 for the braid and 2 for the purls in between each braid, so I cast on 99 stitches. If I knit this pattern again, I'd probably insert an extra purl stitch in between each braid. It's very thick and snug, but it's also tight and doesn't have a whole heck of a lotta give. I mean, it fits me:



But unlike the gauntlets, I wasn't knitting this for myself. I planned on giving it to someone else and I'm concerned that it might not fit the recipient. (Remember, I do have an awfully small pointy head!) Now I'm wondering if I should try stretching it out a bit. I figure it's worth a shot - I just need to find something in this house to block it on that's the right shape and bigger than my head!

There's still a ton of hat patterns I want to try - some that I might actually wear if they look decent on me, others just because I'm curious about the cable or stitch pattern. I'm thinking about maybe a beret next? There's only about a jillion possible patterns to chose from. But life wouldn't be normal if I didn't have a hat on the needles so while I figure out which one I grabbed some leftover Lion Homespun from my stash and started this chemo cap:



Why? Go visit The Watson Highlands and find out!

2 comments:

Heather said...

Have you tried to block the hat with a balloon? I often use this method to block hats. Blow up the balloon to the person's head circ. and then stretch it out and let it dry. HTH! Cute hat!

JamieL said...

Even if it's a wee bit small, the braided cable turned out beautiful! what a lovely color and pattern :D