Astronomy Hat

So, now we have an answer to "can this project be salvaged?"

Sort of.

Astronomy hat on intended astronomer

While I was able to fix the crown, and it now more closely resembles a hat, it had other problems with the design which were not apparent at first. Most notably, it was too big, and was sort of hanging on the head. Ideally this kind of design would be tight to keep the wind out.

The pattern came out quite pretty though. I particularly like how the variegated grays mimic a sky full of stars in photo negative.

Astronomical negative side

And the moon certainly looks moon-like, though a bit too close to the horizon now that I have a full-size crown.

Moon side

And I like how the sunrise colors came out on the earflaps.

Meteor side

The shape reminds me of a military helmet though, instead of a winter hat.

In any case, I decided to see if I could make it a bit smaller by felting it. The good news: it got smaller. The bad news: it turns out the gray yarn is super wash wool, and does not felt (always check!) which makes it a bit baggy on the inside of the hat, like I had used a larger needle. Also, it didn't shrink enough and became pretty stiff.

You can see how big it is on him, and this is after felting it.

So, in conclusion, it is a useable hat at least. But kind of an ugly one.

Can This Project Be Salvaged?

Three years ago I started a hat for my husband. I had been doing a lot of double knitting (which makes colorwork really easy, if time consuming) and decided to make an astronomy hat for him.

In double knitting, the back of the project is the photo-negative of the front. Astronomers use photo negatives to look at stars more easily. My husband is an astronomer. Ergo, I would make him a reversible hat that would show the moon and stars, and would be an astronomy negative on the inside. Since he is always cold, I would give it earflaps. And, just to add a bit of color, The ear flaps would portray a sunset.

I used MacStitch to design the moon, and I also added a shooting star. The stars themselves would be individual stitches placed somewhat randomly in the knitting.

I picked out my yarn: black (of course) and a variegated gray that I had to give the moon (and the negative) some texture. Since it was fingering weight, I doubled it to make worsted-weight yarn.

A good color for a moon?

It was going to be glorious. And then it all went wrong.

Mostly, it was simply poor planning. The pattern looked great! But I spent so much time thinking about the colorwork that I managed to make a mis-shapen thing that could only generously be called a hat.

Would you wear this?

So, 11 months after I started it, I shelved it and declared it a failure. But...

I never got around to ripping it out. I was so annoyed that I had spent all that time for nothing, that I was disgusted with the project. I didn't want to keep working on the sign of my incompetence. But I wasn't actually willing to pull it apart either.

So...

Today I thought I would have another go at it. I ripped back to the edge of the crown and carefully put it on a needle, looked at some patterns for earflap hats (to get a better sense of proportions) and got to work.

I hadn't recorded what needle I used, so I guessed a 7, but otherwise, there haven't been any major snags. It was a bit hard to figure out where the round starts too, but not impossible. It took awhile to get all of the stitches on the needle in the right order (double knitting means twice as many), but I am well on my way.

With a little distance from the disaster, it feels less like I wasted a ton of time, and more like a salvageable learning experiment.

My other colorwork hat that I have been working on is done. I will post on it when I have the pictures up.

Pot Holders

So, I have made one foray into the world of design: a set of four pot holders.

I actually made the patterns for them while I was on my honeymoon in the Caribbean.

I had been playing around with double knitting. This is a technique where you knit two layers of fabric at the same time, alternating stitches. By switching the front and back colors, you can make a seamless pattern that is completely reversible (unlike, say, intarsia). This was around the same time that I was making reversible hats.

The double knitting technique is great for potholders, so there are hundreds of designs, because it is reversible, and also makes a thick fabric so you don't burn your fingers.

I decided to make, just for myself, a set for the four seasons. Winter would be a snowflake. Summer, a sun. Spring would be a leaf and bud, while autumn would be a pumpkin. I later changed the stem to make the pumpkin an apple on the back side, since I made it in red and orange, and a red pumpkin didn't make sense to me.

Darker side (with pumpkin)

Lighter side (with apple)

I could have used the traditional graph paper, but I didn't have any with me. So I downloaded a program called MacStitch. It is mostly designed for needlepoint (it can convert pictures into patterns, for instance) but it has knitting pattern capability as well. The best feature is that you can draw your pattern, and it will resize it to compensate for the fact that knitting stitches are rectangular, not square.

I was so pleased with how it came out that I decided to share my pattern on Ravelry. I didn't do all those things you are supposed to do, like have people test-knit it. I figured, since the pattern was free, people would get what they paid for. Of course, if they pointed out a problem, I would fix it, but I was not going to spend my time knitting it again.

So, what do you think?