Tiny Gnome Hat

Or, the litte hat that tried hard but didn't fit because I didn't look at the pattern AT ALL! Complacency is the downfall of the lazy knitter...

When Ari had sent me the pile of yarn about a month ago, she had requested a regular beanie that she could wear everyday, as well as a hat with her boy's footie team colours and a pair of armwarmers for her cold limbs.

'A beanie? That's easy, I've made heaps of them, I could whip one up with my eyes closed and one arm tied behind my back!' So complacent...so foolish.

I looked around for a simple pattern that I hadn't tried before and stumbled upon the Republic Hat by Nicole Reeves. Everyone on Ravelry was doing it, there were loads of photos, and it seemed soooo easy. Garter and stockinette stitch, sew seams, add a button and you're done! Could've knitted it with my feet!

So I grabbed a pair of 6mm needles, cast on 56 stitches, knit in garter stitch for just over an inch, bound off 6 stitches and continued the rest in stockinette, then seamed it and put it onto my head. Or rather, tried to put it onto my head - the thing was too small and would only sit on the back of my head for a couple of seconds before popping off.

Gahddammit! I was supposed to send the package off the Ari tomorrow! ARGHHGGSHHH! There was another one and a half balls of that yarn left so I grabbed some 8mm needles, cast on and knit as furiously as I could. While watching Norwegian gore.

The good thing about 8mm needles is that your project knits up pretty quickly, so beanie version 2.0 was finished before the Nazi zombies were done tearing up the pretty Norwegian ski bunnies.

I'm keeping version 1.0 for myself. It makes me feel like a little garden gnome. All I have to do is steal the Man-creature's pipe and grow myself a fancy beard.

Ari The Aviator

If you've been following this blog for at least the last month, you'll remember that my friend Ari asked me to knit her a bunch of items. Besides the Dragonforce gauntlets, Ari also requested two beanies - one for casual everyday wear and one for when she has to cheer on her boy's footie team. Luckily, that team's colours are red and black (Melbourne AFL fans, you probably know what team I'm talking about), quite stylish as far as team colours go. Then again, it could be the repressed teenage emo-goth in me...red and black is pretty much my favourite colour combination ever. Next to purple and pink.

Anyway, she asked me for one that wasn't 'completely bogan', and I tried to oblige. The Amelia Earhart aviator cap pattern was something that I'd been itching to try ever since I joined Ravelry, so after glancing briefly at the pattern, I decided that this was the best pattern for Ari's footie hat. Of course, the pattern states that 'Knitting this cap with a plain yarn of one color shows the knitting pattern best.' A line that I had completely missed/skimmed over/ignored when starting the project. It was only after I'd done about 5 inches that I started getting worried...the stripes were going sideways instead of up, like I assumed they would.


AND I HAD ALREADY DONE 5 INCHES! ARGGHHAHGAHHH!

Way to stubborn to frog it, I decided to complete the whole thing instead and see how the stripes turned out. So I finished it, sewed up the seams, and...well, I reckon it looks pretty awesome! The stripes add some flair to the pattern and make it look like a racing helmet. It's way more stylin' than your typical bogan footie beanie. I added a single crochet row at the front to keep all the knots in place, and also added one black plaited tie/tassel on the right, and a red one on the left, so Ari can secure the hat to her head on windy M-town days.


What do you reckon?

Powermetal Gauntlets

...are the secret name for the pair of armwarmers I just finished for Ari. Why? Because I was listening to these guys -


over and over again, while knitting the armwarmers/gauntlets. (I can't be sure, but it looks like the dude on the end has fake blood on his keytar?)

I think power metal may just be the most effective music for knitting...well, for me at least. It just makes me knit so much faster. I'm a knitting machine when Dragonforce are playing. Sweatshop owners should play them constantly to ensure higher productivity.

Oh, for those interesting in the actual knitting deets - the pattern is based on a wave stitch that I modified occasionally*.

Wave stitch goes like this: Cast on multiples of 12 plus 1
Row 1 - *k1, (k2tog) twice, (yfwd, k1) three times, yfwd, (slip 1, k1, psso) twice, rep from * to last stitch, k1

Row 2 - p

Row 3 - k

Row 4 - p

The way I did it on my armwarmers - start with an inch of 2x2 ribbing, and then *follow the whole pattern once through, then do four repeats of rows 1 and 2 alternately (cutting out rows 3 and 4 - the knit and purl rows), then do another repeat of all four rows after that.

Do that till you're at your desired length (I ended by doing 2 repeats of rows 1 -4) then cast on an extra 6 stitches and finished with an inch of garter stitch. The extra 6 stitches form a tab so you can add a button and close it.

If you like, you can do the whole thing on double-points or just omit the extra 6 stitches altogether. I did it because I like buttons. And dpns make me nervous so I knit it flat then seamed it to just under the garter stitch edge.

Oh, these ones are made to be fitted on the arm - I started with 3mm needles, did a third of the thing, then swapped to 4mm needles, did another third, then finished off the rest with 5mm needles. You can always make them on different sized needles for a bagger/tighter fit, or even just use one size of needles for the whole thing.

I might do another pair on dpns just to get over my fear of them. While listening to Dragonforce, of course. Or maybe even Manowar.

\m/

Bounty!

Had to trudge all the way to the Post Office and walk home with this HUGE parcel under my arm the other day, but it was worth it when I finally got to open it. Even if my arm hurt after that. It was frakkin' heavy! Like, over a kilo of yarn heavy!

I think I actually looked a little surprised when the postie gave me the parcel, coz he grinned at me before hefting it over the counter to me. But it's worth the achy arm coz look what I got!

Ari spent over $40 in postage alone. I think it cost her more to post the damnned thing than to actually buy the wool.

And look what else was in the package? Glittery knitting needles! Look at them there glinting in the sunlight!
So many exclamation marks! Because I'm so excited!

But these ain't all just for me. Ari actually bought these so I could make her two beanies and a pair of armwarmers. Which is totally fine by me, coz I hardly ever wear anything I make anyway, and it's all just taking up space, so this gives me an excuse to knit more coz they'll actually be going to someone else.

Well, time to get to work, I guess...