Monday, November 20, 2006

The new Gay Rainbow Hat

I love the Half-Dome hat by Jesse Loesberg in the Summer 2006 issue of
Knitty.com. My first one was a great success and I love wearing it, even if I don' fit the criteria (having a decent head of hair).

However, one really wants to improve on an original sometimes, with apologies to the originator. I'm sure Picasso didn't appreciate all the people who followed him but he had to put up with it, so apologies to Jesse right now. Anyway, what I came up with by accident started at the top instead of at the bottom and since I am not a believer in sewing up much, I knit this one in the round with no seam to sew up at the end, just two ends to sew in, one top, one bottom.

The yarn for this one is from Lorna's Laces again - like the Heavenly Camisole. It's Shepherd Sport weight again, but the rainbow repeat is done from red to purple and back to purple so it's not just a simple red to purple, red to purple colouration. The colour sections are very short too, so one gets a lot of colour over all.

My design skills need work, of course, since when I was doing the math to work out the increases, I made a tiny error and instead of increasing on both sides of a quadrant of the hat, I managed to do my increases one at a time giving me not quadrants but octrants (oh I don't think that's a word, but it looks good so I'll keep it).

Here it is on my head - it's a little small for me but I stretched it over my big head anyway, just so I could show it off. It may have to go to my grandson, who is only five. Maybe it's too big for him.



And here it is, stuffed with a towel to show the increases in a better light.



This may not be Jesse's original hat, but I like it anyway. Any questions? Ask away.

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