Mittens.
Mittens Of Chaos!
I made the mittens again, this time using what I had hoped would be a nice and colourful sort-of self striping yarn from my lovely local yarn shop.
They somehow came out a bit more Brighton hipster than I'd hoped for but meanwhile yay mittens.
God help me I am now trying to make a matching hat.
Oh dear. You have just inspired a horrible, awful, no-one-should-ever-think-of-doing-this, self-torture hat design for stripey yarn:
An entirely short-rowed dome of a beany.
@Amgine I think was looking at something a lot like that on Ravelry yesterday but I am Very Beginner so decided not to as I don't really know what short rows are just yet.
Anyway I'm sure yours will be better :)
Short-rowing is a technique to shape the material by knitting part-way across, stopping, turning around and knitting part-way back, and repeating these steps (with some extra things I skipped for clarity.) The most well-known example is "turning a heel" when knitting a sock, which makes a roughly 90° turn in the fabric.
My idea would be to do it a lot slower, so it will be bigger, and turn a full 180°. The 'stripes' would instead be 'wedges' of colour.
@Amgine Thank you. I've been wondering how socks work (haven't tried them yet obviously...) and that explains a great deal.
Your idea is entirely unlike the Ravelry pattern I was looking at, I think, in that it wasn't using short rows to shape the hat completely but rather just to bend it a bit with small ridges. Also it was knitted sideways.
If I understand correctly, your idea is to use the same technique to basically make a massive hat-sized sock heel hat. And why not?
Because short-rowing can be a pain in the butt.
The stuff I skipped was the 'wrap'; each short row wraps the yarn around the next st. Then, when you finallyl purl all the way across, you pick up each wrap to P2tog, then knit across picking up the other half of the wraps to K2tog.
Lots of futzing around, and chances to make mistakes, to end up with a hemisphere of wedges. Now, do you wear it with the wedges going front to back, or sideways?
@Amgine Lots of hat patterns seem to be all about various ways to achieve a hemisphere or something close to it, but I must confess your idea has also made me imagine a hat basically consisting of a straight-up sock, only bigger, so you can fit it on your head.
I guess your idea is more or less that but without the non-heel parts of the sock involved.
That's a great analogy!
I have never knit a sideways hat, though I have knit a couple sweaters that way. All of my hats have, in one way or another, knit bottom-up or top-down. (Knitting top down is nice because you can try it on, and keep knitting until it's big enough.)
@Amgine That trying-it-on-before-you-finish thing sounds like Very Advanced magic needles or knitting-in-the-round stuff.
I just cast on 86 stitches for a flat-knit hat pattern (only just fits on the needle) and will have no idea if it is even a viable hat for me for weeks or possibly months. It'll fit someone or something I guess, and for now I just need to practice, so.
Wayne Myers
Amgine