The Orange and Black Checkered Hat

I had forgotten how quickly hats knit up. It took less than three days to finish this hat once my last scarf was done.

This hat was knit using Portuguese purling. The idea behind that style is to run the working yarn around the head and hold tension in the right hand while purling by flicking the yarn over the needle with the left thumb. The piece is worked inside out, so purling the entire piece ends up with a knit hat. 

The pattern wasn't free so I won't re-post it here. The orange yarn was some leftover Vanna White from my stash and the black yarn came from the Carron One Pound monstrosity. 

It worked out pretty well except for the crown. Patterns shouldn't tell you to place more stitch markers halfway through so I half-assed the crown. It's all bound off and that's the best that can be said for it. I definitely didn't have the yarn to do it 'right'.

When I do this pattern again I'll use another pattern for shaping the crown.

The White Cabled Scarf Monstrosity

Why do all of the projects I do with this yarn end with "It's DONE!"? Because there is no variety in these projects. I memorized the cables early on and after that it was the same thing over and over again.

The pattern came from Ravelry - the Change-ringing scarf. It was supposed to have two different cable sections but the second one wasn't pretty so I skipped it. 

This was knitted on size 8 needles with Carron One Pound yarn.

Still, it turned out well. The scarf reaches down to my knees and the cables turned out pretty alright. They gap a little at the cross overs but it's not that noticeable.

Practicing finishing techniques

Last month, I had the pleasure of taking a couple of knitting classes. One dealt with finishing techniques and a second taught different ways of binding on.

What I have here is some practice. Both have the same pattern, knit with the leftover Seahawks yarn.

The Dragon Scale Pattern

CO multiple of 4 sts.

R1: K across

R2: (K1, P3) across

R3: (K2, P2) across

R4: (K3, P1) across

This was the first one, on size 6 needles, 24 stitches. Bind on was the Twisted German cast on, bind off was the super stretchy elastic bind off, and I tried slipping the first stitch of each row.

Attempt two was 24 stitches on size 7 needles. Bind on was the twisted German cast on again, bind off was the sewn bind off, and I successfully slipped most first stitches on this piece.

Take away: the twisted German cast on is stretchier than the traditional long tail cast on, the elastic bind off is far too stretchy, and the sewn cast off is nice. I'll be using it again soon.

Slipping the stitches made the sides look nice, but I was too loose in the final stitches on each row to make it look good. Still, it's a good skill to know and it'll look better next time.