Fall is for Hats
There is something about September and the changing leaves that makes me want to cast on HATS. I mean, not just 1, not 2, but whole families of hats! In early autumn it’s not even cold enough here in Vancouver to warrant such a hat desire yet. In fact, I could probably wait until the end of November. Maybe it’s the hustle and bustle of back to school that leaves me wanting a small and manageable project, maybe it’s the end of a long summer of sweater knitting, whatever it is, I’m craving hats.
So I gather up the precious single skeins from my stash, take a look around at the people I love, consider their possible head warmth needs, and then get started churning out hats like there’s no tomorrow!
Pattern Love (6 years later)
I first designed the Gather hat for Knit City… was it 2013?! Knit City is an event I have loved from the beginning and a big part of that is how Amanda and Fiona work to bring the knitting community together. This year I took a new look at this old favourite and knit up a whole family of hats!
Every so often I re-fall-in-love-with a pattern. I really enjoy the smocking stitch, mostly because it looks pretty and complicated, but it couldn’t be simpler (we even have a tutorial for that here if you don’t believe me). I enjoyed putting this unusual palette together, a golden yellow, dusty pink, an emerald and a minty green. It’s pretty far outside my usual colour scheme but I really like it and immediately wanted to create a Strange Brew yoke with the combination.
After knit four Gather hats I decided to give this old favourite a new layout with new photos.
There are more TCK hats to choose from if you are on a hat kick like me!
Antler, Hunter, Beloved, Penny, Tall Dark and Handsome, Rosewater, Clayoquot, Stovetop, Fleet, Precipitation, Snap
Oaken
oaken shawl and blanket
Lately I’ve been inspired by heavy weight lace. It may seem like those two things shouldn’t go together, light delicate lace with an ample woolly yarn, but I promise you, they do! This new design combines the delicious texture of garter stitch with rhythmic, geometric lace, for a project that’s a joy to knit, and cozy to wear.
Oaken brings together heavy lace and simple stitches to keep you warm as the leaves fall and the days shorten. Knit yourself a toasty shawl to put on with your winter coat, or as a blanket to keep your lap warm as you relax with a good book.
oaken details:
Sizing: Shawl: 68” wide by 28” long
Blanket: 35.5” wide by 43” long
Yarn: Worsted / aran weight yarn
Shawl: 620 yards in a single colour as shown Or 350 yards in each of MC and CC to work in two colours (Sample shown in Sweet Fiber Canadian in ‘golden’)
Blanket: 500 yards MC and 390 yds CC as shown Or 850 yards if worked in a single colour (Sample shown in Hinterland Range in snow’ and ‘maple’)
Suggested Needles: US #9 / 5.5mm (or as required to achieve gauge)
different drapes
For the heavier weight Posy shawl (the pale yellow shawl pictured above) I knit a single ply sock weight yarn together with a strange of lace weight mohair, both from La Bien Aimee. That combination (the same one I used for the Love Note sweater) created a fabric with a soft, flowing drape. The lace shone and I loved the mohair halo.
Oaken, however, is designed in a more rustic yarn worked at a firmer gauge. The Oaken shawl is made in Sweet Fiber Canadian, a decidedly woolly yarn (and can we talk about that colour?!). Canadian is light but warm, giving the lace a crisp quality and the shawl, overall, has more structure than the soft drape of Posy.
For the blanket I used Hinterland Range. We used this lovely yarn to make the Antler pullover, and fell in love. Range is a 50/50 Canadian Alpaca/Wool blend, really soft and warm with a slight alpaca halo. The Oaken blanket is worked from the centre (with Judy’s Magic Cast-On) outward to the edge, and can be made in a single colour or using two as I have done. I picture it folded neatly on my couch waiting for company that is feeling a bit of a chill!
Dotty Strange Brew
Recently I was sorting through my MASSIVE pile of works-in-progress (commonly known as WIPs), and I came across this a nearly finished kid sweater. While some projects didn’t make the cut, this one seemed ready to be finished and worn! This little motif was a concept knit I started while we were developing designs for the Strange Brew collection.
It needed sleeves, but to polish it off quickly, I decided to just add few rounds in ribbing, bind off and call it good! And as it turns out, it fits Neve, and is super cute! Who knew that no-sleeves would work? I guess now I do!
Inspiration and ideas
This colourwork concept was inspired by a scrappy Playdate cardigan made by undone57 (she’s BRILLIANT at adapting patterns, and putting together exquisite finished knits… we featured some of her beautiful projects here).
The idea of using the simplest possible colourwork patterns – just stripes and dots, was intriguing to me. So I cast on, and found myself a colour palette that I liked. Instead of simply 3-row stripes with a single row of dots, I alternated 3-row stripes with 5-row stripes, in which the ‘dots’ changed colour each round, to maximize the ‘sparkly’ effect of tiny contrast dots.
The icy pale blue is a common theme in this sweater, it is both the main colour used for the body and the CC ‘dot’ colour throughout the yoke. It’s a light and bright ‘pop’.
combining yarns of different weights in colourwork:
Colourwork can be daunting for newbies, as it requires a pretty extensive stash! I suggest heading to any stash of wee leftover balls from other projects and try combining yarns of different weights.
In this case, I used 3 yarns of slightly different weights. Ulysse is 202 yards yds / 50g, or 4 yds per gram; the thickest of the yarns I used. Loft is 275 yds / 50g, or 5.5 yds per gram, the thinnest or lightest yarn of the three. J&S 2-ply Jumper Weight is 125 yds / 25 g, or 5 yds per gram, placing it in between the others. Due to different natures of the yarns, a yards / gram comparison doesn’t tell the WHOLE story. But my beautiful finished knit DOES prove that despite the apparent difference in weights, these yarns work perfectly well together!
I highlight this to help you extend your view on your stash. If you allow yourself to mix yarns of adjacent yarn weights, how would this open up the door to making more exciting colourwork combinations?
a chart for this Strange Brew knit
This little T-shirt was worked following the Strange Brew colourwork yoke sweater recipe. I worked the top-down version, following the sock weight instructions for the 1-2 year size. Increase 1 was worked before I started the pattern. Then, as you can see from the chart below, I worked increase rounds 2 and 3 on pattern rounds 5 and 16 (both single-colour rounds).
I separated for body and sleeves on pattern round 32 (also a single-colour round). I continued the patterning down onto the body (working rounds 33-48 on the body stitches).
The little ‘cap sleeve’ ribbing is just 6 rounds! I thought it looked REALLY silly, when I was knitting it, but when Neve put it on, it was adorable! Now I’m curious how a cap sleeve like this would work for my size; I may have to try it.
For more info on how to use Strange Brew to create your own colourwork yoke design, check out our blog series here!
Marshland Round Up
In order to create Strange Brew Emily and I spend a LOT of time swatching colour combinations and motifs. Some sweaters just took a swatch or 2, others took 3-4 full adult size yoke attempts to get it just right (I’m looking at you Marshland!). I knit the adult yoke SEVERAL times, until I was so sick of looking at those colours I cast on for Jones’ warm yellow one instead. That’s when I hit upon the motifs I liked best.
You can buy the Marshland single pattern PDF here, or the Strange Brew ebook, which is a great value, it includes 14 colourwork patterns and our top tips; all photographed against Iceland’s majestic scenery.
It has been so much fun to see the amazing combinations knitters have come up with! I recently took a stroll through Ravelry and Intagram (#marshlandsweater) and here are some of my favourite Marshland projects!
Such awesome knits from (clockwise from top left) amandaecc, danniellesteen30, estelle78, greenearth124, dublin16, bonniedegros of Union Fiber, and andrewonehalf.
The Brights
While I tend towards earthier colour combos, I LOVE seeing the bright and fun combos knitters have come up with! From bright coral to rainbows and everything in between!
Bright and fun from snowberrylime, lvanleeuwen, mollshumway, and krityum!
Who wore it best?!
I love that lilp00hbear knit up this gorgeous Marshland for her hubby….but has borrowed it on occasion!
The Hacks
It’s fun to see a few hacks in there too! I love the way this steeked cardigan by bryanneashley turned out. The collar hack from brienne_moody is great for a more open neckline. Tanis of Tanis Fiber Arts mashed up the Marshland charts with her R&R hoodie pattern for her son!
A few more faves
There were just so many! Here are a few more great Marshland sweaters.
Beautiful knits from (clockwise from top left) theleaninglarch, ms.knitsalot, karo913, hikesandbikes, maromago, and MttCavin
So, with all this fantastic inspiration around, what will you choose for your Marshland sweater?
My Knitting Machine
How do I love my knitting machine? Let me count the ways!
At the end of 2017, I got a knitting machine, and embarked on a journey of learning and gaining skills. Prior to this I had precisely zero understanding of what a knitting machine was, and how it worked. I’ve learned a lot since then!
My generous friend Mica, one of the Edinburgh Yarn Festival organizers, and a keen machine knitting enthusiast, taught me all I needed to get me started! She set up a loaner machine, and spent an evening instructing me on the basics; how to cast on, hang weights on the edge of the work, how the machine knits with the wrong (purl side) showing, and how the carriage moves back and forth across the edge of the work, laying the yarn over the needles which then form the stitches one by one in rapid succession.
That night, I could hardly sleep for all the ideas that were flowing through my mind about projects that I might try with the aid of this powerful tool!
I have often felt frustrated that despite being a knit designer, my own wardrobe of knitted sweaters has long been woefully meagre. I have often knit design samples to fit our models in sizes a little smaller (or shorter) than I would wear. And even when the samples fit me, they were destined to go ‘on tour’ to promote the latest book; travelling back and forth from Canada to the UK and even further abroad to be shown at shops and knit shows.
The result was that I seldom had a knitted sweater of my own to wear, despite this being my livelihood! Wild eh?!
hybrids : combining hand and machine knitting
Reading Kate Davies’s book Yokes, I learned that in Shetland, yoke sweaters often were and still are knit as hybrids; with body and sleeves made on a knitting machine, and yokes finished by hand. In fact, her Cockatoo Brae design includes instructions for making a yoke this way, as she made her sample, knitting the yoke on to the body and sleeves made by Ella Gordon.
I imagined working hybrids, partially machine knit and partially hand knit, would be the answer to a few of my questions. I could zoom through the stockinette sections of a prototype, and then apply my precious time and design efforts to the ‘meaty’ portion of the knit project.
The truth is that I LOVE design. I love knitting too… but it’s really the ‘high excitement’ parts of the knitting that appeal to me as a designer. I’m driven primarily by the desire to make something new, something that’s a little bit intriguing or beautiful; of course I’m always aiming for a little of both!
machine knitting is long term learning process… like hand knitting
Domestic knitting machines of the sort I have been learning to use are ‘push a button and go’ like sewing machines. They are manually operated; you use elbow grease to slide a carriage back and forth across a ‘bed’ of many needles, and in this way create the rows of knitting.
If I thought that the process to finished garments was going to be a quick one, I soon learned that I was mistaken! I’ve been ‘making friends’ with my knitting machine for around 18 months, and I am still by no means skillful. I say this to make clear that machine knitting is not really a ‘quick and easy’ way to do knitting; it also requires a lot of technique and skill (the same as hand-knitting does).
After some time on a basic machine, that only did stockinette, I upgraded to a machine with a punch card, so I could play with colour, and added a ribber bed, so that I could work ribbing too.
the results
I’ve been able to add sweaters to my wardrobe this year at a more rapid rate. This means that I can now wear a hand-knit sweater every day of week (even in summer, ’cause this is Scotland!).
I have felt free to cast on a yoke idea, work through the yoke in a few days, and then zoom through the stockinette and have a sweater to wear WHILE I debated whether Alexa and I would develop the knit into a pattern, or let it remain a personal wardrobe piece. In the past I simply didn’t have the time-luxury of continuing with knits that weren’t likely to be published.
The capabilities that my current machine has are: colourwork knitting, tuck stitch, and lace using a punch card. The only one of these I’ve explored so far is the colourwork knitting side. I find it useful for swatching lace patterns.
strengths
As described, knitting stockinette portions of seamed garments is very easy. With a ribber bed attached, ribbing is pretty quick too. I love being able to work in finer yarns than I would spend the time hand-knitting. I love being able to prototype quickly, and foresee using this as a way to test different kinds of silhouettes with a little less time-investment.
With a punch card, I’m able to swatch colourwork patterns more quickly than I can by hand, accelerating this aspect of design, and allowing me to test more options than I might otherwise.
A tool like a knitting machine, of course, is no substitute for experience. The experience you need to hone your intuition for combining colours takes time and practice to build up. But whatever technique you use will build on these skills; so I have welcomed my knitting machine into my toolbox.
trade-offs
There are many methods for shaping which are simple when hand-knitting, but much more difficult and impractical within machine knitting.
While it is technically possible to knit tubes in the round, it’s much simpler to work flat pieces and then seam them; which adds manual time back into the process.
Decreasing within the centre of a piece (ie. to create vertical darts, or gathers across an entire row) is impractical. Thus decreases are kept to the edges of pieces.
And knit/purl textures, including garter stitch, while possible, tend to be so impractical as to be not worth the bother (unless you’re a dedicated machine knitter, but I’m speaking as a hand-knitter).
More importantly, in terms of the way it FEELS, machine knitting is not the same sport. One of the joys of hand-knitting is taking your work to a coffee shop, meeting up with friends, or sitting out on the beach on a sunny day with sunglasses and your needles. Machine knitting, by contrast, is largely solitary. While the results of both hand and machine knitting are the same knitted fabric, the process is different.
machine knitting take-aways
I love my knitting machine as an aid in prototyping. Design work, which is my passion requires a LOT of prototyping. The myth of the beautiful object springing fully-formed from the creators head is just that, a myth! (Though often supported by the Instagram accounts knit designers!).
I love making things, and I’m pleased to add this as another tool to my toolkit, alongside a large array of other fun tools like my laptop, my fancy camera, sewing machine, spinning wheel, … I love making things, and I also love nice tools!
Let’s make a Beloved Bonnet
This is a step-by-step tutorial on the Beloved Bonnet pattern. You can find the pattern on our website or Ravelry. The pattern lists the supplies you need; yarn, needles, stitch markers, and what gauge to achieve, but to be honest, matching gauge precisely isn’t SUPER important in this case, because babies grow very quickly!
Knitting along? For this tutorial, I made the Beloved bonnet in Swift Yarns Cozy DK in ‘golden panda’.
beloved bonnet construction
The beloved bonnet is knit from side to side; beginning with one i-cord tie, and ending with another. When Neve was a baby, I found the ties were just perfect for keeping a cozy hat on a wriggly little bean who would attempt to tear off every hat and throw it under the buggy, just when I wasn’t looking.
we LOVE this knit!
We’ve knit this bonnet MANY times… in Hedgehog Fibres one, two, three, four times, in La Bien Aimee, in Cedar House Yarns, and in handspun too!
yarn substitutions
We designed this pattern in DK weight yarn, but the pattern is very flexible! Alexa made several of the samples using two strands of sock yarn held together, which make a fabric a tiny bit heavier than DK, but it still works. We explain how to knit with 2 strands held together here. You can make Beloved in worsted / aran weight on 5mm needles if you prefer, it will just come out a little larger.
how to work an i-cord
The bonnet begins with the i-cord on one side; see our tutorial on how to work an i-cord.
Once the i-cord is done, you start working back and forth in rows, working one side of the bonnet by increasing two stitches on every right-side row, along the centreline of the piece. This pattern uses both the lifted-bar m1 – make one increase, and the kfb – knit front & back increase.
how to work an i-cord edge
Throughout the bonnet, you always slip the first two stitches of each row. For this pattern you are always going to slip your stitches as if to purl with yarn at the WS of the work. This means if you are working a WS row the yarn will at the front of your work, and if you are working a RS row the yarn will be at the back of your work.
Slipping these stitches creates an i-cord edge. It’s not a genuine i-cord, but it has a similar look. The slipped stitches mean that only half as many rows worked along the edges as are worked in the rest of the piece, which causes the edges to ‘pull in’ in a tidy way that frames the face.
how to work short rows
Once the i-cord and initial increase section is complete, you begin a second method of shaping, which utilizes German short rows.
Does the mention of short rows make you want to throw your knitting aside in disgust?
If so, stop, breathe, and let me walk you through this simple technique! I guarantee if you follow our clear instructions you’ll be fine! Your bonnet is going to be adorable!
The steps:
Short row 1 (RS): sl2, knit to 1 st before marker, kfb, SM,
kfb, knit to last 10 sts, turn work [2 sts inc]
Short row 2 (WS): with yarn in front (on the WS of the
work), slip the first st from the LH needle to the RH
needle (the last st worked). Next, pass working yarn over
the RH needle to the back of the work, then between the
needle tips, back to the front of the work, ready to purl.
This creates an extra loop over the needle. Purl to last 10
sts, k7, p3
Row 3 (RS): sl2, knit to 1 st before marker, kfb, SM, kfb,
knit to the ‘doubled’ stitch, work k2tog to combine the
stitch with the extra loop over the needle, then k10 to
end [2 sts inc]
Row 4 (WS): sl2, p1, k7, purl to last 10 sts, k7, p3
The steps in detail:
Short row 1 (RS): sl2, knit to 1 st before marker, kfb, SM, kfb, knit to last 10 sts, turn work [2 sts inc]
To work the Short row 1, follow the instruction, working across the row to the last 10 stitches. Instead of knitting to the end of the row, as you would normally, STOP. Then turn the work, so that the WS of the bonnet is facing you, and you’re ready to work Short row 2.
Short row 2 (WS): with yarn in front (on the WS of the work), slip the first st from the LH needle to the RH needle (the last st worked). Next, pass working yarn over the RH needle to the back of the work, then between the needle tips, back to the front of the work, ready to purl. This creates an extra loop over the needle. Purl to last 10 sts, k7, p3
So you slip the first stitch without working it. Then you wrap the working yarn over the needle to the back (RS), then back to the front (WS). Then you work the wrong-side row. Now you’re ready for the next RS row!
Short Row 3 (RS): sl2, knit to 1 st before marker, kfb, SM, kfb, knit to the ‘doubled’ stitch, work k2tog to combine the stitch with the extra loop over the needle, then k10 to end [2 sts inc]
So you continue working in pattern, but when you get to the point where you turned, you’ll see you have a ‘doubled’ stitch. You simply k2tog to combine the stitch with the extra loop, then knit to end!
Short Row 4 (WS): sl2, p1, k7, purl to last 10 sts, k7, p3
Row 4 is just a regular WS row, worked all the way across.
As you continue, the roughly diamond-shaped piece gets larger and larger. Work these rows as many times as stated for your size.
You have reached the centreline of the head, and will switch to decreasing along the central spine. You’re at the half way point, congratulations! Each row will get faster and faster from here to the end!
decrease section with short rows
The short-row shaping which creates a section of fabric along the back of neck which is has half as many rows than the remainder, so it pulls in to cup the back of the head. The pattern of short-rows continues, but at the centreline, either side of the marker, you will decrease instead of increasing.
In order to match the same slightly bumpy pattern created along the increase line, I worked a slip stitch on the decrease side.
… knit to 2 sts before marker, ssk, SM, sl1, k2tog, knit to …
First you work a ssk decrease, then slip the marker (SM), then slip the next stitch (sl1), then you work a k2tog decrease.
So those are all of the complicated pieces of this hat! As you continue to decrease, you eventually come to the point where the stockinette panel of the bonnet is entirely decreased to nothing. A central double decrease, sl2-k1-p2sso, is used at that point to maintain the vertical detail between garter stitch panels.
end with another i-cord
When there are only 4 stitches left, you finish in the same way that you began, with an i-cord! Make it the same length as you did for the other side, weave in the two ends, and voila, you’ve got the cutest little bonnet!
Now you’re ready to knit a #belovedbonnet … then another, and another? Share your cuties on Instagram using #belovedbonnet and #tincanknits so we can see what you make!
Your mileage may vary, but I found there was a period in babyhood in which my children would rip off each and every type of hat that I tried to put on them. Frustrating! For both Max and Neve, this behaviour stretched over a winter, and I desperately wanted to keep their little ears and heads warm against the bitter cold and rain on chilly Edinburgh days.
I found the i-cord ties very useful. If you’d prefer not to work ties, you could start with a stubby 3-4 rows of i-cord and then attach a cute pom pom on each side! Or add a pom pom on top, can there be too many pom poms?
Hunter’s Knitting!
When Hunter was 4 she started asking to learn to knit. I got her some needles and yarn and (with very low expectations) we started to knit together. You can read all about her knitting start here.
Well, it’s 4 years later and there hasn’t been a whole lot of knitting going on for Hunter. She finished that first project, a cowl for Jones, and hasn’t really done much since. It’s all just fine by me, Hunter is a creative kid and she loves all kinds of crafty endeavors. She started a scarf, but quickly got bored and abandoned it. Recently though, she started asking if she could make a hat.
In preparation for our trip to Winnipeg to visit the Long Way Homestead I caked up some pretty yarn I’d picked up in Ontario last year and cast on for Hunter (I’m sorry, I can’t for the life of me remember the name of the yarn and the ball band is missing!). The pattern is one I made up as she went, it’s bulky yarn so I cast on 56 sts, then had Hunter rib for 1.5″, knit in the round for a bit, and then decreases based on the Barley hat.
While she has known how to knit for four years, she had to learn how to purl. I figured it would take some explaining and practice but after 2 demo stitches she grabbed the knitting and off she went. A few stitches later she stopped to look at the ribbed fabric, looking at the right side and the wrong side. She turned to me and said ‘oh I see, it’s just the opposite of a knit’. I was pretty blown away.
She was a person on a mission! That hat was finished in 3 days and she was so excited to model her hat with her favourites on the farm, the sheep. Hunter immediately chose a skein of Anna’s yarn to knit another hat, a Barley, and she has big plans after that: her first sweater! She’s just like me, always planning 3 projects ahead!
