Saturday, December 15, 2007

It's a Hat! With Cables!

Apparently, even with all of the crazy going on, I still knit.

I don't know why, but I've been in the mood for cables lately. I think it may be the time of year and the coziness of cables.


The Pattern:

This hat is from a pattern I found on Ravelry. I was looking for a good men's hat. It's called the Caramel Cable Hat and is designed by Iris Wilde.

The Yarn:

I used 2 skeins of Mission Falls 1824 Wool, which is 100% merino superwash.

This is my first time using this yarn, and I love it. I just wish the yardage was better. It's so soft and squishy. At some point I will definitely knit myself a sweater with this luxurious yarn.

The Needles:

I also used a 16" 3.75mm circular Addi Turbo needle and once the decreasing got to be too much, I switched to a 3.75mm set of Crystal Palace double pointed needles.

The Mods:

I only did 3 repeats of Chart B because I was worried about having a hat that was too gnome like. Then after I moved onto Chart C - I spent the rest of the time second guessing myself and thinking the hat would be too short. I decided to go forward and trust my judgment, and I'm glad I did, because the hat is the perfect length.

I also repeated the very last row one extra time, because there was something off with the stitch count for this row (even though I followed the pattern exactly), so even with this extra row of decreasing, I was still left with 15 stitches, when it should have been 13. I don't know if it was me or the pattern, but as far as problems go, this was about as minimal as it gets.

The coolest part?

Call me a geek, but I think that the coolest part of this hat is that there are decreases in the cables, but you can't see them because they are done in the center of the cable on the row before the cable cross. By decreasing this way, the cable at the base of the hat is actually larger than the cable at the top. This blew my mind!

I can't believe how on top of my knitting I am this year (the secret is to start in the summer). This hat was the last thing I had to knit for Christmas.

I love this hat, and I love that the pattern is so unisex. I'm seriously considering making one for myself in the new year.

How is your Christmas knitting going?

10 comments:

turvid said...

It's beautiful, and already in my ravelry-queue. :)

Ann said...

It's gorgeous & love the cables. Great job! Merry Christmas.

Anonymous said...

It has decreases in the cables? Okay, that's it, I'm sold. =D Yours turned out lovely.

Linda said...

Wonderful hat! And congrats on being ahead of the game. Enjoy your holidays!

Ilix said...

Wow, your last Christmas item! Way to go! I don't know how many I have left! LOL

Dave said...

What a great hat! Thanks for sharing the link.

knitting elephant said...

I love how the hat turned out! I've always wondered how to decrease cables... now I'll have to try this pattern to see how it works! Nice job!

Heather said...

Looks like a great small something to try cables out on. And Christmas knitting....don't ask!

tiennieknits said...

That is a great hat with cables! Yes, it is especially cool that the decreases happen in the cables.

JessaLu said...

Beautiful hat!