The Yarn Harlot is about to be deluged by emails again, since she posted an appeal for cute baby hats to donated to a program about breast-feeding for underpriveleged mothers. Who can resist? Not this knitter, with a bundle of fluffy pink and green yarn in her stash and only two small boys to knit for.
I actually did most of this hat on my new knitting machine last night. I’m in experiment mode and the knitting machine is helping me crank out stuff and try out embellishments, new colours, new shapes etc. It’s semi-instant gratification, plus a bit more sewing than I would like.
I knitted this in Peter Pan, 44 stitches and 12 rows of green, 30 of pink, threaded the yarn through the last row, pulled it tight, sewed the back seam and let the bottom edge roll. Actually, the bottom edge didn’t roll as much as I wanted, so I tacked it up at a few places around the brim.
I’m pretty proud of my leaf/stalk, since I made it up. Here’s what I did:
Cast on three stitches. Knit i-cord for 2cm (sorry, I still think in metric for small measures).
Put two stitches onto a holder.
Working on one of the three stitches from the i-cord, increase one stitch before and after,
R1: Knit
R2: Purl
R3: Knit 1, YO, K1, YO, K1 (5 st)
R4: Purl
R5: K2, YO, K1, YO, K2 (7 st)
R6: P
R7: K
R8: P
R9: K2, *Sl 1 K1 psso, slip the stitch back to the left needle then slip the next stitch from the left needle over it and transfer back to the right needle*, K to end (5 St)
R10: P
R11: K
R12: P
R12: K1, repeat from * to * from Row 8, K1 (3st)
R13: P
R14: K
R15: P
R16: repeat * to * from Row 8
Pull thread through last stitch. Leave dangling and use later to tack the edge of the leaf through the hat.
Repeat on other two held stitches from i-cord.
Voila, three leaves.
I pulled the ends of the i-cord through the gather in the top of the hat and secured them. Then I pulled the loose ends from the ends of the leaves through the hat and tacked them into place.
Cuteness achieved.