Garter Stitch Hat

[dreamling]

9-10-08
Started this last night, had to use an open safety pin for the cable cast on, I need to pick up a crochet hook.

First project for me that wasn’t a single stitch, good knit and purl practice. Just need to remember, knit means working yarn on top of the peg, purl means working yarn on the bottom of the peg.

9-15-08
Getting pretty close to final length before the decreases start. The garter stitch is pretty, and dense and warm, but takes a lot longer to make length than the simple stitch I used for my first hat.

9-17-08
Finished up the the crown pieces, the pattern says to divide into 4 sections of 9 pegs… which is fine, except that I had 2 extra end pegs involved. I just decreased them into another row of k and p. Seems like that worked out ok in the end.

As for the crown pieces… well, it came together ok, but after I’d finished 2 of them, I realized that the instructions want you to decrease each wedge by the end loops, and I was only doing it from the right side. I decided to continue the way I’d done the first two, so I wouldn’t have different shaped pieces, and finished it up.

I think it made things a bit more…pointy, but worked out pretty well.

This hat looks a bit more.. handmade, ie, you can see some errors I made, a couple half-rows where I forgot if I was knitting or purling, and switched. :P and the roughness of my safety pin crochet cast on.

I like how Isela’s book teaches a few things on each pattern. This one taught me the garter stitch, the mattress bind off, decreasing in sections for the crown, and the crochet cast on. Also, that garter stitches take much longer to grow than simple stitches.

The hat is warm though, and fits, and is a pretty green color, that none of my pictures seem to capture.