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)


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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?

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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)

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Sue's Chemo Hat Completed

Sue's hat is finally done, I hope she likes it. It is the Knitpicks Chemo Hat. I just need to find an envelope so I can send it to her. I also need her mailing address. I asked Rob but he didn't have it. Will check with Karen as I think she visited Sue recently; she is one of the most organized people I know. While I'm getting this one ready to send to Sue, I will also get the Branching Out scarf ready to send to my midwife. I meant to send it to her last month but haven't gotten around to it yet. Things move slowly in this house, especially with a "high needs" baby around. I couldn't go to the post office last week because of all the rain. I'm hoping there'll be a sunny day (ok, I'll settle for a non-rainy day) this week so I can walk over there. Mobility is limited with baby it tow.

The picture above doesn't really capture the actual shape of the hat because of the unusual shape of the model's head. You can get a better idea of the shape from the first Knitpicks Chemo Hat I made; that one is going to the UCSF Oncology Center. The model in these pictures is my baby girl's Fisher Price Laugh & Learn Puppy which she received for Christmas. She's still warming up to it. I don't know if she likes "noisy" toys, but I do know that the lights (on the bone) catch her attention. She squeals at this toy.

I love the swirls on top of hats. This one is especially pretty. It's hard to see on such dark yarn, it looks similar to the other Knitpicks Chemo Hat I made in lighter green yarn.

I learned something recently about chemo hats from a breast cancer chemo patient since last May who is on her third chemo treatment. She told me that losing hair is a real trauma along with everything else and that most people don't even want their families to see them bald, at home, in bed, or wherever, at first. She suggested making chemo hats out of cotton or lighter weight yarn that can be worn indoors as well. That's good to know! I hadn't considered this before.

Yarn: Austermann Peru sport weight yarn, 70% Baby Alpaca/ 30% Fine Merino Wool, color Juniper (75 m / 81 yds; 25 gm / 0.88 oz)
Needles: US3 (3.25mm)

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Sue's Chemo Hat Started

I've started another Knitpicks Chemo Hat with Austermann Peru in Juniper, a very soft yarn made of 70% baby alpaca and 30% fine merino wool. I'm hoping to make this hat with 2 balls of yarn, but that may be cutting it close, so it may require 3 balls. This hat is for Sue; we used to work for the same Big Five, er... I mean Big Four accounting firm. I'm hoping to finish this hat and get it to her before they turn into the Big Three. :)

I hope Sue doesn't mind that this is a "hand wash, dry flat" yarn. That's the thing about yarn ... softness is almost always inversely proportional to care, and most natural fiber yarns are hand wash. I picked up this yarn from Elann. I'd love to get more but they are down to one ball left in inventory and it's in yellow. I guess I'll have to go to eBay if I want to find more, there's always somebody on eBay selling this yarn.

Knitting this hat seems a little easier the second time around. The 4-row Short Row Shaping sequence seems a little easier since I already did it 6 times on the previous hat. Sorry no pictures of the hat, too exhausted at the moment. And by the time I get the pictures downloaded to the computer and then uploaded here, the hat will have already been completed! Stay tuned for a picture of the hat... I expect to have it finished within a few days.


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