Even though I’ve been busy doing a lot of other things the past couple weeks, I’ve still been knitting. I haven’t done much posting, but my fingers have still been busy. I recently started working on a bunch of knitted hats for a friend of mine, and my own daughter asked if I could make her one. And she wanted a purple hat.
So here is the start of her purple hat. I say start, but it’s really almost half done. I expect to finish it tonight while I watch the rest of the Voice, cause I like to knit while I watch television at night. I only started this hat yesterday too.
Hats like this are pretty simple. I looked through lots of different patterns on ravelry that I could have made, but there are too many so I decided to create my own. When you create your own hat the one thing you need to check is your gauge, or you may get a hat that’s too small or too big for the person’s head that you’re knitting it for.
Lucy has a head circumference of 20 inches. What is really funny is my head size is about 21. So essentially, I have the head of a small toddler. And if she doesn’t end up liking this hat, it’s totally mine. Knowing her head size, I know I need to knit a hat that is at least 20 inches around to fit her. I am using a size 9 circular needle and a pretty bulky yarn, so I tested out knitting a small square on the needles I chose to see how many stitches fit into one inch of knitting. This will tell you what your gauge is.
My gauge for one inch is 4 stitches. Since I need 20 inches, multiply 20 by 4, to get 80 stitches. So I will need to cast on 80 stitches for this hat. Which is perfect because this is the same number I’ve been using for the hats I was making for my friend. And her daughter’s head is about the same as Lucy’s.
I decided to use a knit 4, purl 4 rib so that the edge of the hat stands out more, and isn’t so bunchy. And I love the way that the hat colors are naturally striping. Reminds me a bit like a watercolor painting. It should be a really warm hat for Lucy once it’s done. I have a feeling it’s going to be one cold winter.