I Knit a Hat Today!

After stitching at Alda’s this morning and lunch at Arby’s, I headed over to the new Michaels in north Whitby at Taunton and Garden. It’s in the corner of the plaza near Marks. The official opening will be this Saturday. 

I bought a couple of balls of Patons Classic Wool Worsted yarn for a Nordic hat I wanted to knit - Dark Gray Mix and Aran. I was happy that these two colours were available because I’m finding Michaels are replacing most Lion Brand and Patons yarns with their Loops & Threads yarns. The Classic Wool Worsted is one of my favourite commercial yarns. It’s 100% wool, not scratchy and lovely to work with.

With our upcoming Iceland/Norway trip, an iconic pattern seemed like a good thing to do. I used a free pattern from Drops Design, 219-14 Winter’s Night Enchantment Hat.

It’s written for DK weight yarn so I modified the pattern for worsted weight by casting on only 96 sts. This is the number of sts I usually cast on for a hat for myself with worsted weight. The chart is 6 sts wide so that works well as 96 is divisible by 6 for the chart, and by 4 for the ribbing. I used 3.75mm needles for the ribbing and 4mm needles for the rest.

I knit the ribbing almost twice as long so it would fold up for extra ear protection.

I skipped the pattern for the crown and began the decreases right away - every other round to 12 sts between stitch markers, then every round until 8 stitches remained. Then I ran the yarn through the remaining sts and secured the yarn. Because I doubled the ribbing I used a little more than half the 100g ball - 56g. If I had done the regular 4cm ribbing, I probably could have had enough to knit a second hat this size. If I reverse the colours, I could get a second hat from the remaining yarn. 

Skipping the crown chart, I also omitted the random ‘lice’ stitches. I also omitted the pom pom.

While I was at Michaels I bought the last skein I needed for my Cardinal’s Winter project (DMC3765) and a skein I needed for my needlepoint project. Thanks to my DMC thread colour chart, I was able to match the light yellow green floss I misplaced with DMC 704.

While at stitching this morning, I finished stitching most of this clandestine project.

I’m going to finish it as a little pillow. It’s on 32ct linen using 2 strands over two threads.