As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, I have been knitting some hats at the request of a friend in New Zealand whose breast cancer has, unfortunately, returned.

It was kind of cute:  in her email request, she actually offered to PAY me.

Por.

Favor.

My personal knitting is not for sale.  I only knit for people I really care about.

It is, in fact, a pretty damned select group.  Besides myself and my "work knitting" (samples and designs), my efforts go to:

  • HUSBAND – DH has one sweater, one pair of slippers and various pairs of socks.
  • RELATIVES – My parents received 1 sweater each.  Others I have knit for include a few siblings and siblings-in-law; a couple of nieces; and our former housekeeper and babysitter, who was the closest thing to a grandma I ever had.
  • FRIENDS – Among friends, there was the trio of EZ's "Best Baby Sweater" for Jeanine's triplets (!); some felted toys for dogs and cats; and a couple of truly heroic efforts for Abby and Sandi.
  • And now, three hats for Kim!
Note:  over almost 25 years of knitting, I am sure I am leaving out a few gifted items here and there — but there is also a wee bit of hairsplitting going on here:  just because you've received something I've knitted doesn't mean I knit it FOR you!
But in this case, I did, with pleasure.  Schmoos to you, Kim!

Kim chose three hats off Ravelry that she liked, and here is how they turned out:

my version of "Marley" hat#1:  The Marley Hat

 Kim chose this pattern but it turned out to be a kid's hat!  so I had to improvise a bit.

I found this cotton chemo cap pattern from Bernat to use as a base, and went from there.  The squiggles on the top are crocheted.

Yarn:  YES, I knit something in cotton.  I didn't have all that much in terms of cotton leftovers, surprise surprise, so I actually bought a kit that was meant for a little girl's skirt to get a lot of bright fun colors, and added what bits I had that went with it.

Aunt Jean's Invisible Jog saves the day again!  Find this fabulous technique by Cindy Sauerwald in Vogue Knitting, S/S ’00 issue, or reprinted in their 25th anniversary book.

my version of the "Swirls" cap

#2:  The Swirls Cap

This one is also crocheted!  Kim really put me through my paces.  :)

Yarn:  I used Berocco "Vintage", and I thought I had the gauge right, but I ended up having to add several rounds to get the appropriate diameter hat.   I also had to go back and get a second skein to finish out the brim and the decorative button band, which didn't get done until after the picture was taken.

 

 

'Shroom" hat in Malabrigo

#3:  The Shroom Hat

I think this one came out the best of the bunch!  It's the one I recently wrote about where I lucked out on the yarn and the gauge thing.  See, it's spring in NZ right now, and Kim wanted the hat to be in a lighter-weight yarn than the super-bulky yarn that was used in the original design.

The pattern calls for a gauge of 10 sts per 4 inches. I used a needle size to give me 20 sts per 4 inches and then just doubled all the appropriate numbers. Kind of a hinky approach, but it worked!

'Shroom" hat in Malabrigo

Yarn:  The yarn is Malabrigo and it took comfortably less than one skein.  Awesome!