Helena and I have been cooking up a hat design together using her hand-dyed yarns, and I decided to make a first draft that matches my Clockwork:
Even without having much of a pattern yet it took just a few hours to make, and I love the way it came out (in spite of its not being the shape I intended). It was a little small when I took this picture, so I took advantage of some previous experience to fix it.
News You Can Use: some - but not all - superwash wools will relax and stretch out when you wet block them, and it' s impossible to know which before you finish your project and put it into the water. For this reason, it's a very good idea to make your first-time use of a new superwash a project that won't be ruined, such as a shawl. If you do have a disaster with something that's meant to be fitted, I've heard that blotting the Wet Thing and putting it into the dryer will reverse the stretch.
This hat has some superwash in it, and I know from previous projects that it does stretch (though not in a horrible way.) So I wet blocked it and sure enough the self-striping yarn was relaxed enough to let me stretch it out a little, and chummy enough to take the non-superwash solid with it.
The hat is still the right length not to slide down over my eyes, but it doesn't pop up when I shrug my shoulders any more. Plus, I'm definitely not going to have any hat dents in my hair.
I'll have to give it a test run out in the cold before I decide whether or not to frog and reknit, because it's pretty loose around the brim, and the shape is still not what I had in mind. I'll correct both of those features in the next draft of this design.
In the meantime, I kinda like it!
2 comments:
Red suits you so very well! You should wear it a lot!
That is one very fine hat!
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