Free Pattern: Steph’s Basic Hat Recipe

I love free knitting patterns, and the Internet is full of them.  I’ve knitted many web freebies and have a binder full of future projects just waiting to be twisted into finished knits.  (Winter’s coming!)  Anyway, with all the freebies I’ve received online, it seems only fair to give something back.  Here’s my standard hat recipe.  With this formula you can make either rolled brim or ribbed brim hats in either bulky or worsted weight.  The brown hat below is made from worsted yarn from the Queensland Collection by Delhi Yarns, purchased on the clearance rack at Knitters Mercantile in Columbus. 

By the way, if you’re a new-ish knitter and you’d like to learn to make hats, I teach the ribbed hat in bulky yarn at the Michaels store on route 23 in Lewis Center.  (If you’ve never knitted before, please take my basic scarf class first!)

Enough babbling… on with the pattern!

Download the file in Word format: Hat pattern

This hat recipe contains adaptations for worsted and bulky yarn as well as for ribbed and rolled brims.  Use size 10 circular and straight needles for any style you make. The size is for a regular women’s hat.

 

Step 1:  Cast on.

If using bulky yarn, cast on 68 stitches.  For worsted weight yarn, cast on 72.

Step 2:  Choose your brim – rolled or ribbed.

Rolled brim:  Join yarn for circular knitting, being careful not to twist the stitches and placing a stitch marker at the beginning of the row.  Knit every round.

Ribbed brim:  Join yarn for circular knitting, being careful not to twist the stitches and placing a stitch marker at the beginning of the row.  K2 P2 for 2-1/2 inches.

Step 3:  Knit the body of the hat.

Rolled brim:  Continue to knit every round.  The first few inches will naturally curl to reveal the garter stitch inside the hat as the rolled brim. After the rolled brim forms, knit until there is 7 inches of flat stockinette stitch.

Ribbed brim: After 2-1/2 inches of ribbing, switch to knitting every round. Knit until there is 7 inches of flat stockinette stitch above the ribbing.

Step 4: Set-up row for finishing the hat.

Worsted weight: You should still be knitting the 72 stitches you cast on.  Starting at the stitch marker, K7 K2tog for one round (64 remain).

Bulky weight:  You should still be knitting the 68 stitches you cast on. Starting at the stitch marker, K15, K2tog for one round (64 remain).

Step 5: Finishing the hat.

• K6, K2tog (56 remain)
• K5, K2tog (48 remain)

• K4, K2tog (40 remain)

• K3, K2tog (32 remain)

• K2, K2tog (24 remain)

• K1, K2tog (16 remain)

• K2tog (8 remain)

Cut tail of yarn 6 inches long and weave it through the remaining stitches on the needles.  Weave in ends. 

Brea Bag Update

The Brea Bag’s strap is in the works.  I met with Al Scheiderer of Al’s Leather Craft in Marysville today and he’s making me a beautiful honey-colored custom strap with my initials stamped into it. I’ll post photos (of course!) when it’s done in a week or so.  If you’re looking for custom leather trims for your knitting projects, try Al!

Autumn Handbag

Tom and I went out to breakfast at Buehler’s recently, and they’re getting ready for fall with potted mums on the patio. It won’t be long until there are pumpkins, gourds, and all the other signs of fall.  That means sweaters, turtlenecks, boots and cuddly fall clothes…

I needed a new purse.

This one is my own design. It’s made with Lamb’s Pride by Brown Sheep. The pattern is for sale in my Etsy shop if you’d like to give it a try. (If you’re a friend or fellow Skein Gang member, just email me and I’ll send it to you.) 

Can’t wait for fall!

Brea Bag

Fall’s coming!  This probably isn’t big news to you but it’s a big deal to me. (Summer isn’t my favorite time of year.) I’ve been putting the finishing touches on some bags for fall.  Here’s the Brea Bag, a free pattern from the Berroco web site, which I made in my favorite olive-y green Ultra Alpaca.  It’s lined with a wild print and I sewed in a zipper a few weekends ago, so except for a handle it’s ready to go.  Anybody know any leatherworkers here in Central Ohio? I need to find someone to make a nice brown leather strap for it… with antique brass D-rings and with my initials stamped into the strap.  So far the closest leather craft store I can find is in Mount Vernon, Ohio.  If anybody knows someone closer I’d really appreciate the help!

Here’s a close-up of the wild lining:

Socks for Me!

I’ve been knitting adult socks in worsted weight and baby socks in fingering weight for some time now, but I finally bit the bullet and made myself a pair of socks using fingering weight sock yarn.  It took some doing… I adapted my favorite pattern from worsted weight on 7′s to fingering weight on 2′s.  The yarn is called OnLine Supersocke 100 in the color “tropic.”  It’s from Knitter’s Mercantile in Columbus.  One 100-gram ball made both socks with plenty of yarn leftover to do baby socks or hats.  It’s superwash wool blended with 25% synthetic.  They wash up beautifully (the label says “heiss waschbar waschmaschinenfest” which I think means safe for hot water machine wash) and come out SO SOFT!  Nothing feels better on the feet than handmade socks.

Ever heard of Etsy?

A few years ago I spent a couple of months building a web site to sell my handmade jewelry, and in addition to the build time it was a constant ongoing effort to publicize the site. Now, there’s Etsy.  It’s an online community of artists and crafters that allows each member to have their own online store.  Set-up takes minutes, item listing fees are inexpensive, and the site itself drives traffic to your saleables. No fuss, no muss online selling for handmades.

Here’s my new Etsy store. If you have one, I’d love to see it so please email me the link! 

Finished Project: Felted Purse

It’s finished!  The booga bag pattern from Black Sheep Bags.  I used 3 skeins of Boku Yarn by Plymouth to complete this bag rather than Noro Kureyon, which is what the pattern calls for, and the Boku knitted and felted beautifully. 

If you’re a beginning knitter who has mastered the basics of knitting and purling, and you’re looking to spread your wings a bit, I’d recommend this pattern. It will give you some new tricks to learn like picking up stitches, circular knitting, making I-cord and felting.  If you’re just learning these kinds of things for the first time, check out the Knitting Help web site… This site has short, super clear videos on how to do basic to advanced skills. (In fact, everytime I graft the toe of a sock, I go and watch her video on Kitchener Stitch.  Kitchener is impossible to learn from reading but easy to pick up by watching it.) 

For an intermediate or advanced knitter, this is a quick project that knits up over a couple of evenings – a good “no-brainer” for knitting in front of the TV. I’ll definitely make this pattern again, maybe even as a gift.  The finished purse is just the right size, super soft and colorful. 

One note: if you like a purse that holds its square shape in the bottom, trim a piece of stiff cardboard and sew up a sleeve of fabric to fit. Fold over the edge of the sleeve and slip this into the bottom of the bag for some extra support in the bottom. 

First Felting

Here’s a photo of my first shot at felting. It’s a mix of three different yarns: Paton’s Classic Wool Merino (gray), Cascade 220 (green), and Plymouth Boku (blue and purple – it’s self-shading).  Pre felting it measured 11.5×5.5, and afterwards it was 7.5×4.  So, lots of shrinkage!  Now that I have a rough idea of how much it shrinks, this mix of yarns is going to become a pretty felted wool purse. 

The piece above is knitted in Intarsia using clothespins as bobbins – not my favorite method but it’ll do. I did like that the weight of the clothespin seemed to keep all of the yarns hanging straight and not tangling.   

For felting, this swatch was washed on the 16-minute washing cycle (hot wash/cold rinse) with about 3 tablespoons of liquid Tide and two pairs of old jeans. After the rinse cycle I removed the piece (it felted after only one cycle!), rolled it in a towel and stepped on the roll to squeeze out the water.  It was thoroughly dry in a couple of hours.

Finished Project: Multidirectional Diagonal Scarf

Thought you might enjoy seeing pictures of a recently finished scarf. This was made using this pattern and two skeins of Boku yarn by Plymouth in Color #2.  What a great pattern this is… It’s one of those that is so simple you can do it from memory and focus on the TV while you knit.

From what I’ve read about Boku online, it gets mixed reviews from knitter.  Some knitters seem to have problems with breakage, but in the two skeins I used, I only had one break. No biggie.  If you’re a very tight knitter, your mileage may vary.

 After knitting, the scarf was about four feet long – kinda stubby for my taste. And, when I tried it on, the wool had an abrasive feeling on my neck. So I ran it through the washer with a load of jeans on warm with liquid Tide, then hung it across three hangers to dry, tugging at the ends lightly to give them a slightly flared bell shape.  The washing made the wool super soft and slightly fuzzy, and the scarf grew to its finished length of 6′.  Perfect!

I’ve got one skein left of this yarn, and I think it’ll turn into either a hat or mittens to match the scarf.

If you try this pattern, I’d love to see a picture!  If you’re here in Delaware, Ohio, try The Stitch Stops Here on Winter Street for your yarn.