Chemo Hat #8 Completed - 3AM Blue Cable Hat

I made another Cable Hat. I'm calling this one the 3AM Cable Hat because I was nursing my baby girl at 3AM ... and I was thinking about how to tweak the Pink Cable Hat while walking her around to get her back to sleep (it's amazing how active my mind is while walking baby back to sleep in a dark room). I wanted to make it slightly shorter, with shorter K2P2 ribbing and CF6 every 8th row. So after I got baby to sleep, I went to scribble down my notes. This is what I came up with.


The blue hat was knitted using Worsted weight yarn. The purple hat was knitted using DK weight yarn. (More pictures of the latter hat can be found here:
http://smariek.blogspot.com/2006/11/my-3am-cable-hat.html)

Stitches used in this hat include:
Knit-Two Purl-Two Ribbing, BW1 pg 39
Six-Stitch Cable Crossed Every Eighth Row, BW1 pg 242

Please email me if you would like your photo and a link to your blog (if you have one) to appear in My Readers' Gallery.



3AM Cable Hat pattern:
3AM Cable Hat from Box.net (no registration required, just click on link & save file)


.

Chemo Hat #7 Completed - Pink Cable Hat

More cables! I seem to be in a cable phase, huh? I decided to make a larger hat for women who have larger heads. I know heads come in all sizes, and some of the smaller hats I've made won't do for large bald heads. The brim can be folded up if the hat is a little too tall. It looks great on me with the brim folded up more in front & less in the back, just covering my ears enough to keep them warm. I tend to prefer making cables going towards the left (CF) rather than right (CB) because I find it a lot easier to hold the cable needle in front of my knitting. Although this is a rather simple pattern, I still managed to make a booboo in the decrease section where I forgot to P2Tog. Unfortunately I didn't realize this until 6 rows later. Doh! So I had to frog back to where I made the mistake. I just picked up stitches on the row where I wanted to go back to using the technique described in this Knitty article (about halfway down the page). Worked great!

I don't have a model for this hat. I just stuffed it with a small towel so I could prop it up for the photo. It's really stretchy and doesn't look as tall & skinny when worn. :)

I enjoyed working in this hat, perhaps I'll make a second one. If I do that, I will definitely make a few changes. I'll probably make the K2P2 ribbing a little shorter (no fold up brim). And in the early part of the decrease, I'd change my K2Tog to SSK so that the stitch slants to the right instead of the left, which (I think) will be a little more aesthetic next to the main cables; I did remember to do SSK instead of K2Tog in a later round which looked better in my opinion. I may decrease it by 12 stitches and/or use US6 needles to make a smaller/snugger hat. I really liked working on this hat more than the other two cable hats, green Chemo Hat #2 or pink Chemo Hat #5, so I'm more likey to make another one of this hat than those ones.

Yarn: worsted weight yarn in pink
Needles: US7 (4.5 mm)
Cast on 96 stitches?

.

Branching Out in Baby Silk Completed

Happy New Year everyone!

I completed this Branching Out scarf a while back, just never got around to posting a final photo of it after blocking. It looks pretty much the same as it did during blocking. :) This scarf is about 6 feet long!

There is a Branching Out KAL for anyone who is interested. It's great to see other people's finished scraves, and to see the yarns & colors they used.

Yarn: 2 balls Peruvian Collection Baby Silk yarn, color Sapphire
Needles: US6 (4 mm)

.