Helmet Hat Pattern

Finally the pattern for this hat is done, sorry for 7 months delay...

This is a very simple pattern, easily adjustable to fit and looks good with variegated yarn.

Yarn: I have used slightly over 1 ball of Gedifra Fashion Trend Color in colour 4567 (roughly about 100yards). This is very inconvenient unless you already have some of that yarn as left-overs (I had, so going over 1 ball made no difference). Any Sport weight yarn suitable for US 6-8 (4.00-5.00mm) will work.

Gauge: 15st x 20rs (10cm x 10cm/ 4inch x 4inch)

Needles: 4-5mm (US 6-8) circulars. I knit using magic loop, but you can chose to work with DPN or any length of circulars.

Size: 56cm (standard) adjust by adding removing pattern repeats

Pattern: [3K, 3P]*

Also you need crochet hook (same size as your needles) and extra yarn for cast on (try to use same type as your hat yarn).

With crochet hook cast on 84sts (28 pattern repeats). Change to needles and your hat yarn: [K3, P3] x 14. Carefully enclose the ring (take care not to twist). Now continue knitting in your pattern for 12cm (here 24rows).

Decreases:

Note: Knit 3 rows keeping the pattern after each decrease row!

Start decreasing in the P3 regions of the pattern only. P2tog first two sts in every following purl region (i.e. K3, P2tog, P1, K3, P3). You now have 77sts.

Repeat decreases with the P3 regions you have not decreased last time. You will now have 70sts left and pattern will be [K3, P2] x 14.

Repeat decreases as above until you have [K3, P1] x 14 pattern and 56sts.

Decrease as above but now with SKPO (sl1, k1, psso) instead of P2tog; first by decreasing P1, then K3. Continue until you will have 14K sts left. SKPO every second sts in one row, so you have only 7sts left. Cut yarn and with either crochet hook or needle close and secure those sts. You now have main body of the hat.

To make the helmet, remove waste cast on and put a needle through all stitches, you will now work in opposite direction from previous knitting!

Using markers, select 33 front sts (starting and finishing with P3); this will be your forehead region.

Row1 (RS): Join the yarn just in front of your first marker; P1, P2tog, cast off front 27 sts, P2tog, P1, finish the row following the pattern. You will now knit only the ear flops and the back having both right and wrong sides.

Row 2 (WS): SKPO, work the pattern until last 2 sts, K2tog

Row 3: SKPO, work the pattern until last 2 sts, K2tog.

You now have 15 sts of first ear flop (K3, P3, K3, P3, K3), 21sts of the back and 15sts of second ear flop (K3, P3, K3, P3, K3).

Knit following pattern for 7 more rows and close the back 21sts leaving only ear flop regions to be worked separately. You might wish to make the back region longer, mine is 5cm longer.

Ear flops are knitted using the same decreases method as in the main body of the hat. Keep decreasing until you have only 3 sts remaining, K3tog and secure the end.

That’s it! You have your own helmet hat! Mine took under 2hrs from initial measurements to the end result ;)

Mushroom Hat Pattern

Mushroom Hat

Materials: 3 skews of Blue Sky Alpacas Bulky Hand Dyes (here colour 1003 Porcupine). Note that skews have slightly uneven yardage
Needles: 15mm and 20mm
Gauge: there are three different gauges used here
· Double yarn on 20mm: 4 x 5 in 10cm x 10cm
· Single yarn on 20mm: 5 x 7.5 in 10cm x 10cm
· Single yarn on 15mm: 7.5 x 10 in 10cm x 10cm

Note: I would strongly recommend swatching as it varies from knitter to knitter!

Depending on whether you want it to be close fitting (like original Marc Jacob) or slouchy, as here, you would have to cast on and distribute you 3 skews differently. I did knit the more original looking hat initially but then opted to re-knit as slouchier since original was too low for my eye vision and because it was tight I could not adjust it. My version is VERY slouchy and some people may find it uncomfortable/impractical in every day life. I will give basic directions for tight option because I did not takes notes on how I knitted it and detailed instructions for slouchy option. The adjustment is very simple, so that something in the middle could be easily knitted.

Slouchy Option:

Cast on 44 stitches on 20mm needles with 1 strain of yarn and enclose in the circle (take care not to twist the yarn). Knit with 1x1 rib for 10-11 rows. This section of the hat will be folded inwards to make the shape.

Stay with 20mm needles but add another strain of yarn and knit for 12 rows. You will run out of one skew, so rejoin it with the 3rd skew and keep knitting; by the end of the 12-13 row you will run of the second skew and will be left with a single strain of yarn. This will mark the end of the main part of the hat. Knit 1 row with remaining 1 strain of yarn so that the change will be gradual.

Change to 15mm needles and knit 1 row across. Now start decreasing: because the hat is knitted in 1x1 rib it is very easy to do invisible even decreases. Note that when decreasing one knit and 1 purl stitches into one, it is the knit stitch, which is dominant and should come on top, i.e. knit both stitches together, so that purl is behind knit.

First row of decreases: decrease like above in every altering pair of knit and purl (i.e. Knit 2 together, 1K, 1P, K2T, 1K, 1P…)
Second row of decreases: decrease the altering row not decreased in the previous row only)
Repeat decrease rows 1-2 with remaining stitches, which by now should all be knit. Make sure that all your decreases will be to the same side.
Pass the yarn through the remaining stitches and pull tight closing the hat.

With remaining yarn sew the folded section of the hat taking extra care not to disturb the front pattern. Note that when folding fold in the first couple of rows knitted with double yarn, otherwise the change will be easily visible and it is the most visible part ;).


For the original-looking/ tight hat cast on 30 stitches on 20mm needles with 1 strand of yarn and join in the circle (take care not to twist), knit in 1x1 rib for about 15 rows (because you cased on less stitches you have more yarn to make the folded version larger; making it 20 rows and folding it twice will give even a better result). Join second strand and knit as in the previous option until left with single strain (this will give about 15-20 rows (if you run out of yarn in your first skew, join it with the third). Close and sew in as slouchy.

This pattern is easily twigged to be in between, just cast on even number of stitches!

Camouflage Stole Pattern

Hi, I am still here, just passing by… Thank you everyone for some really nice words on my knitting. I am slowly integrating into my new life (work consumes a LOT more time these days ;)). Never-the-less I have two completed project I have to post, but first is one of my long-overdue patterns.

Camouflage stole

This stole is perfect as a first crochet project, for someone with no crochet experience.
I have used Alize Pure Wool Cashmira yarn, which is not available in Europe and America, but you can use any variegated DK weight yarn you like and has access to. I would like to re-knit it in Noro Silk Garden, which has the same gauge as in my stole. However, stitch pattern can easily be adjusted to fit any gauge.

Because this is a very simple stitch, you can take any yarn you like and the crochet hook recommended for this yarn (usually the same as needle size) and do 9cm x 9cm gauge. For me one of the advantages of this pattern is that there is only one row to be repeated over and over again, so you can easily stop once running out of yarn.

My stole took up 830 meters/ 900 yards of yarn to get dimensions of 150cm x 40cm. I have used 3.75mm crochet hook, but up to 4.5mm is fine. If you do want to crochet it, I would strongly advise to make it 50-60cm wide.

The stitch pattern used is called Rope stitch and it was taken from the book ‘Good Housekeeping: Crochet’ printed by Ebury Press in 1981 (ISBN 0852232047).

Abbreviations:
ch = chain
lps = loops
rep = repeat
t-ch = turning chain
sp = spare
tr = treble (Make a ch row, yrh, insert into 5th ch, yrh, draw 1 loop through; yrh, draw through first 2 lps on hook, rep one more; count to end, 3 t-ch, turn, make 1 tr into 2nd st on last row)
yrh = yarn over hook

Pattern:
Make a number of ch divisible by 3, 3ch, turn
Row1: 1tr into 4th ch from hook, 1ch, 1tr into next ch, *miss 1 ch, 1tr into next ch, 1 ch into next ch, rep from * to last ch, 1 tr into last ch, 3ch, turn
Row2: (1tr, 1ch, 1tr) into each ch sp to end, 1tr into t-ch, 3ch, turn.
Repeat row 2 throughout.

When you are happy with the length of your stole you can either stop or do fringe, I really love the fringe option with this stole. Please take into account that fringe takes up a LOT of yarn! My stole is 30 patter stitch repeats wide (90sts), therefore once bound off it has 90sts to pull fringe through. Three strains of yarns (40cm long each) formed a single bundle of fringe; 45 bundles were used on each side of the stole (in every other sts)

The calculation I would recommend you to use in order to estimate the meterage/yardage is as following:

The length of the fringe (keep in mind that you will fold each strain in two once knotting it) x number of strains you want to use in each bundle (I used three to get a better colour variegation) x number of bundles you used per side) x 2 (stole has 2 sides).
e.g. for my stole I used 40x3x45x2 =108meters of yarn.

That’s it! My stole only took me a couple of evenings to crochet bearing in mind that it was my first ever crochet project. I hope you make it ;)

Useful or useless

Cannot decide actually, so what do you think?


When I finished my first Monkey Sock I was left with quite a leftover of yarn and taking into account the colour of it, I was completely lost at the prospect of finding a project that would incorporate it (I don’t like to store leftovers)

My boyfriend took a look and proposed to knit wrist bands. At the time I must say the idea seemed too appealing to resist because I use them very-very often. Ok, here is an embarrassing fact about me: as soon as the temperature strikes 25C my face starts to sweat enormously, just like in a sauna. I don’t sweat anywhere else but the face. Nothing helps against it, I can’t use any make up during the summer time, and to make things worse there is no hope of growing out of it. It is hereditary, my father and grandmother are just the same.

To wipe my brow I tend to go through loads of tissue per day and 2-3 wrists, so you see: it is an essential item for me. The thing I have noticed over the years as that sport wristbands are not as tough as they should be: they do not survive for more then a month in my care and every day wash (Nike sometimes lasts longer).

Here is the ingeniousness of my boyfriend’ idea: the yarn is for socks, so it is the toughest one available and in theory should withstand the summer. We’ll see about it.

Ok, enough on the advantages of the knit, coming to the uselessness of it: it took a really long time to knit. They only look small but being done on 1.5mm, it took about an evening each and I grew sooooo tired after the first one. I was only able to complete them employing all the willpower I seem to posses. I could have done a large garment at the time ‘wasted’.

Now you see why I have this mix feeling toward my wristbands


Model: Wristbands by me (72st x80rows for XS wrists)
Yarn: Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sock in colourway ‘Happy Valley’ (about 0.5-0.75 of the ball for the three of them)
Needles: Pony 1.5mm(US 000)