FO: Cabled Chapeau

The lovely Cabled Chapeau. I finished this hat back in December, wrote the majority of this post in January, and here it is, April 5th. And it's raining, not snowing, so no need for the hat. But oh, how I love this hat! I wore it on the cold, but not arctic, winter days here in New England. it was quick to knit (when I spent time knitting), soft and conforming, and most importantly, big enough for my head! We have big heads in my family and most feminine hats squeeze the dickens out of my head. That said, I'm sure other patterns can be customized to accommodate my cranium but I loved this pattern from the start - big cables, flexible brim, and covers my ears.



Knitting the brim was a a bit odd. I couldn't figure out what doing short rows in the middle would do to the shape. I just couldn't picture it. Also, the way the pattern is written, the two long edges are not the same length, and I thought they would be since they just fit on the inside and outside of the hat. Weird. I just kept on going with the pattern instructions and tried not to question it.

Once I finished all the pieces they cuddled up together in a bag on the couch as I tried to gather up my nerve to tackle the brim. I did have another hat to follow for brim shape, but I was anxious about doing it wrong. Then I realized if I didn't cut something, I wouldn't have a hat to wear when I went home for Christmas. And of course, I wanted to show off my handiwork!

I would have made the knit piece for the brim smaller but I just sewed it in father on the inside so I wouldn't have a baggy brim. If I make this hat again (and I think my friends back home are preparing to put in their orders) I will figure out how to make the knit piece a bit smaller, and use the cardboard template I made for the brim as a guide.

It's time to give this hat a wash in the sink and put it in with my other winter things. Or maybe I'll wear it on particularly chilling spring days...it is the perfect shade of blue!

Here is a photo of me and my big sister after the crazy northeast storm that made getting home from Christmas an adventure. Instead of flying from Rochester to Boston, I rode with my sister and brother-in-law to Montclair, NJ, then took the commuter rail in to NYC, then a Bolt bus to Boston, and then the subway home. A roundabout way of getting home after the holidays, but better than waiting for the snow to clear. I know this photo doesn't show off the hat all that well, but you get the picture!

Cable complications

I got to row 10 on the Cabled Chapeau hat and just didn't like what was happening with the purl stitches in between the cables. I was ending up with loose purl stitches, particularly to the right of the cable (for most knitters this happens in the column of stitches to the left of the cable, but I'm a lefty so it's reversed, remember?) I started searching online for help and ended up with some pretty complicated methods to try.

Cat bordhi has a video for just such a problem, however it's a complicated move that I could not grasp. Side linked with this were clips on how to do the Norwegian purl stitch, which looks to be the same move. Again, a bit tricky. I read somewhere that you could leave out a purl stitch in each place where the loose purl happens, knit the garment, then go back and pull up a line of stitches in that loose area with a crochet hook. Sort of picking up a dropped stitch that wasn't there. This seems like a lot of trouble to go to, modifying the pattern, adding the potential for lots of error. Knitty has a great section on knitting cables that does mention the loose purl stitch problem and essentially says, pull it real tight!

I decided to rip back to the ribbing section and start the cables over. I realized though that my cast-on/ribbing section was looser than I normally knit, and so the stitch spacing of the whole hat would be off, and after knitting two rows I ripped it all out again.

On row 2 of the second try I noticed that when I joined the yarn I didn't join it properly and once again, I have an infinite loop instead of a hat. I did this with my second try for the baby berry hat too. I never used to have a problem joining, but it seems to happen when I use a circular needle that's longer than I need it. If I plan to use magic loop for the knitting I just cast on with the longer needle, but then it's very easy to twist the join without noticing. So, 6 days after starting the hat and knitting along, I cast on for the third time. *sigh*

I decided to reverse the directions for the cable. The pattern calls for a 4/4 LPC (slip 4 stitches to cable needle and hold to front) to make left twist cables. For me, since I am lefty, I do this and get right twist cables. I really like how the hat looks as is, so I held the stitches in the back.

I managed to finish the main body of the hat while away for Thanksgiving, and started in on the brim only to realize that I needed a refresher on short rows. The hat pattern does not include full instructions on short rows. Once I was back home and could sit in front of the computer I sought some visual aids. Everyone has their own way of explaining the strange 'wrap and turn' function that makes short rows possible. I found watching the video on knitting help to be the most straight forward for me. I think this time I finally understand! Maybe now toe-up socks won't seem so scary.

So, all I have to do is finish the brim, knit the band for across the front, find buttons, eat a container of Cool-Whip, cut a brim out of Cool-Whip lid, sew it all together, and...I think I need a nap.

From One Hat to Another

I finished a project! Late Sunday night I completed the baby hat for my friend's 17-month-old. I made them matching hats out of the Berry Baby Hat pattern and used black and white, flipping the colors so mom has the white with black top, and baby has the black with white top. I hope I can get it in the mail tomorrow. They've already had a bit of snow there!

Very late Sunday night I started a new project, the Cabled Chapeau, a pattern from Stitch Nation which is free on their site and on Coats and Clark. Last year I made a hat I loved but it doesn't look good on me. I would also need to frog it a bit and make the crown a lot deeper to get the fit I'm after, namely, to cover my bloody ears!


I'm using Plymouth Encore Worsted Tweed for this project. It's a wool/acrylic/viscose blend that is springy and soft. I noticed when casting on that this yarn is a 'Z' twist. I hope that doesn't cause too much of a problem for me. The only other time I knit with a 'Z' twist was for a baby kimono sweater in 2009. The Lion Brand Microspun has a tight 'Z' twist which gave the knitted fabric a different texture. This yarn seems to knit up fast and is very cushy and lovely so I hope that will offset the irritation of cables. They are lovely after all, so I must put up with them.

Tonight when I picked up the hat to work on it, I noticed a weird stitch. Well, not so much a stitch a mistake. There is a loop of yarn pulled from one row up over 5 rows and knitting back in. I don't know how this happened, but I will be ripping back a bit tonight to take care of it.

Also, does anyone have tips on how to knit cables? I end up with some loose stitches on one side of my cables, and I think there's a trick to preventing that, twisting the stitch, or knitting through the back? Something like that.