Beanies, hats and caps for charity

Kerry, my hostess for Secret Pal 9 recently challenged us to knit hats for charity, and asked us to post photographs of both work-in-progress and completed projects on our blogs.

Firstly, here are the work-in-progress photographs of my projects.

The 'Lacy Hat' from Jo Sharp's 'Knit 2' book...


... knit with Jo Sharp's 'Soho Summer DK Cotton' in 'Rockpool'. As you can probably see from the photograph, my lace panel is the mirror image of the original, so whoever this hat finally ends up with will definitely have something one-of-a-kind. ;)

The 'Kashmir Hat' from Jo Sharp's 'Knitting Emporium' book...


... knit with Jo Sharp's 'DK 8 Ply Pure Wool' in 'Aubergine' and 'Pistachio'. I hadn't knit anything with duplicate stitch motifs before, and I have to say that those cross motifs took at least as long to do as it took me to knit the hat itself.

The 'Piper Hat' from Jo Sharp's 'Contemporary Knitting 1' book...


... knit with Jo Sharp's 'DK 8 Ply Pure Wool' in 'Scarlet', which is one of the heathered colourways -- Michael really loved the colour of this yarn, which I'll have to remember next time I'm knitting something for him.

I'm not sure how obvious it is in my work-in-progress photograph, but the photograph of the finished hat in the book is slightly different to the hat I knit -- the band around the lower edge of the hat has the stocking stitch side out on mine, whereas the hat in the photographs in the book have bands with the reverse stocking stitch side out. The instructions in the pattern actually tell you to work the band the way I have done it, and as I liked the look of this better I decided not to change the pattern to make the hat look like the ones in the photographs.

However, I did change the pattern so I could knit the hat on circular needles instead of the straight needles the pattern originally called for, and I used a provisional cast on so that I could pick up the stitches and work the band as a knitted hem, instead of sewing it into place later -- which I did in the hope that the resulting line would have a bit more stretch to it, as obviously I don't know the person who will eventually be wearing this hat and I wanted it to be as comfortable as possible to wear. I hope it worked, as getting it right and purling all those stitches together with the correct stitch orientation was a lot harder and more time consuming than I'd thought it would be.

One thing I hadn't thought about when I decided to knit the hat in the round was what to do with the i-cord piping, which originally had the ends sewn into the seam at the back of the hat. I ended up solving the problem by grafting the four live stitches straight from the needle to the cast on end of the i-cord after most of the i-cord was sewn in place on the hat, which actually worked quite well.

The 'Old Bean Hat' from All Tangled Up...


... knit with Jo Sharp's 'Silkroad Aran' yarn in 'Serg'.

I made changes to this pattern too -- I knit it on 5 mm needles instead of the original 4.5 mm needles, and worked 10 cm of K2 P2 rib instead of the original 5 cm so that the ribbing could be folded back over itself for the brim, and the hat would still be long enough to keep the ears warm. I also increased the number of stitches to 90 at the point where I started knitting the stocking stitch section, as a result of which I then had to change the way the crown shaping was worked because of the extra stitches.

Mark Thrailkill's 'London Beanie'...


... knit with Jo Sharp 'Silkroad Aran' yarn in 'Venetian', with stripes in 'Opal' and 'Quartz'.

I actually used the pattern alterations which can be found here to knit a larger beanie, as the original seemed a little on the small side to me -- I knit the medium sized beanie, but with 13 rounds of K2 P1 rib instead of the 15 rounds in the modified pattern.

"Mark's Butch, Macho Roll-Brim Seaman's Watch Cap"...


... knit in Jo Sharp's 'Silkroad Ultra' in 'Neptune'.

I ended up knitting 54 rounds of K2 P2 rib instead of the 38 rounds specified in the pattern, as I wanted a cap with a reasonably deep turned up brim, and which would be long enough to keep the ears of the wearer warm. I also altered the crown shaping to be more like the shaping I knit for the modified 'London Beanie', only in K2 P2 rib instead of stocking stitch.

And here are the finished hats, beanies, and caps. I'm not sure why, but none of the colours in the photographs of the finished items are quite right -- the colours in the works in progress photographs are all much closer to the way they appear in real life.

The 'Lacy Hat'...


The 'Kashmir Hat'...


The 'Piper Hat'...


The 'Old Bean Hat'...


The 'London Beanie'...


And finally, 'Mark's Butch, Macho Roll-Brim Seaman's Watch Cap'...


Many thanks to my 'Reject Shop' glass head for agreeing to model all of the hats.

All of these hats, beanies, and caps will be delivered to 'Just Enough Faith' later this week. I'm really pleased with the way they've all turned out, and I hope their eventual recipients enjoy wearing them. :)