My first freestyle self-designed hat!

[untonuggan]

I was playing around with some beautiful yarn the other day and I self-designed a hat for my mom's friend. (My mom was worried she wouldn't have time to knit it before Christmas as she's knitting an epic scarf for my brother.) I started with the inspiration of the "daisy chain stitch," which is featured in Vogue Knitting's Stitchionary (available from my local library). I'm sure it's in Barbara Walker as well, if only I could get my hands on one of her stitch dictionaries.

Anyway, my mom's friend (who I've known since I was 8, as I'm friend's with her daughter) is an avid gardener. I've dubbed the hat "Wild Growth hat", because it takes its inspiration from that. It features seed stitch; daisy chain stitch; some cabling symbolizing tree limbs; more seed stitch at the top of the tree limbs symbolizing leaves/new seeds; various other fancy bits and bobs. The decreases at the top are meant to symbolize the sun.

What I particularly liked is that I went in with an idea of gauge and the kind of pattern I wanted, but I basically decided, "I feel like doing fancy garter stitch here," or "that's enough seed stitch, I'm sick of it." And it turned out really well. I hadn't planned on doing cables, and they're not "even" throughout the hat...but it is a Wild Growth hat after all!







For anyone who's interested, the yarn is Fiberphile Superwash Merino in "True Heart" (but I think the maker is sold out of the color, so finding it could be hard). It's gorgeous and I love the texture of the color.

Edit: Also, I uploaded some photos of another hat I finished recently. It's based on a pattern from a book my mom got. More photos on my Flickr site (click the photo for more).

Comments

[jjhunter]

It's beautiful! Thank you for sharing. :o)

[untonuggan]

Thanks! The brain weasels were yelling at me all during the decreases, but now I am quite pleased with it.

[daedala]

Very cute!

[untonuggan]

Danke!

[eruanna]

That turned out great! I've been playing with stitch dictionaries lately, too, but not making anything in particular (yet).

[untonuggan]

Which ones have you been using? I really want to get my hands on some Barbara Walker stitch dictionaries because everyone keeps talking about how great she is, but I'm waiting until after Christmas to buy any such books. My library only has the Vogue stitch dictionaries.

Also, they are a lot of fun. You should totally run wild with one! ^_^

P.S. I like your icon.

[eruanna]

I don't have Barbara Walker either. I want to get those, too, but it will have to wait for awhile. Amazon has them with free shipping, but I can't do it right now. Our tight budget just got even tighter, so I'm not spending any more money on craft stuff or books, for a few months.

I have an old book called The Complete Encyclopedia of Stitchery by Mildred Graves Ryan. I've had it for years. It might be out of print, but I taught myself to knit from it. It has quite a few knitting stitches, with sketches.

A few months ago, I got 400 Knitting Stitches: A Complete Dictionary of Essential Stitch Patterns by Potter Craft. Found it on sale, but it's a nice book. Photos of all the stitches.

I borrow a lot of knitting books from the library, too. My library has 2 of the Nicky Epstein books on edgings. Have you seen those? I especially like Knitting On the Edge. You might like the 'flora' chapter. It has a lot of leaf, berry, and flower borders.

I like the Vogue books, too. Some of the stitches from those books are online here, and Lion Brand's Stitch Finder section has some of them, too. I got book 1 (knit & purl) at BookCloseouts for $11, just recently. That site has good deals sometimes, and if they don't have what you are looking for, you can put it on your wishlist and they will tell you if they get it in stock.

I've been trying to start a scarf using different stitches from the books I have, but keep ripping it out. It's a print yarn, in black and gray, and just doesn't show off most of the stitches I've tried so far. I'm looking at slipped stitches now, trying to find something that looks good with this yarn. I didn't pick the yarn; the person who wants the scarf did, and it's harder than I expected, trying to find something that looks right.

Sometimes I just play around with scrap yarn and one of my stitch books, seeing what happens. I should try doing a hat, like you did, instead of just swatching. I don't do anything with the swatches and sometimes just rip them out. I started making a sampler afghan when I first started knitting but only finished about 4 squares. I was using Red Heart Super Saver and I just hate the way it feels, knitting with it, so I abandoned it. But I have the yarn and might as well use it up. I've heard that it is much softer after it is washed, so if I can ever finish the thing, it will at least teach me a lot of different stitches. I did a daisy chain block for it.

Sorry, didn't mean to go on and on! And thanks, about the icon. I made it from a pic I found. :)

[untonuggan]

Thanks for the list of all the books! I'll definitely take more time to peruse them later. I do know (because I peeked and should thus be on the "naughty" list) that I'm getting Barbara Walker's 2nd book for Christmas...I guess Amazon had that one on special but not the first one. I'm not complaining!

I've been trying to think of economical ways to knit (because I can go through merino worsted weight like candy, which is to say, too quickly). As much as I would like to knit everyone I know a hat, I may be switching to also knitting some lace patterns...or socks...or something. Although I think lace lasts for longer, and so far in my limited experiments I liked the lace more than I liked the socks. (I got 500 yards of merino lace weight yarn for $10. Enough for a scarf, and it should take me quite a bit of time.) I splurged on some nice needles because I didn't want to keep splitting the yarn.

It's hard knitting with yarn you didn't pick yourself.

[eruanna]

Sorry, forgot to mention that you could try inter-library loan for what your local library doesn't have. My library doesn't have a great selection but sometimes they will borrow from another library in the state for me.

[untonuggan]

I've been considering trying the inter-library loan thing...just have to figure out how it works (I know how it worked at my university, but sadly I can't use their library anymore).

[eruanna]

Oops, just thought of one more site you might like. New Stitch a Day. They are adding more knitting stitches all the time and there are videos for each one. A lot of them are stitches I have in one of my books, but there have been a few I hadn't seen yet. You can subscribe to the feed or their YouTube channel if you want to keep up with what they're adding to the site.

I promise to go away and stop serial posting now. ;D

[untonuggan]

Thanks! My partner demands that I also get off the computer and stop serial posting. I appreciate all the info.