Christmas Hats - Production Machine Knitting Method

Christmas 2008

Production Machine Knit Reversable Hats




This year I decided everyone in the family would get a hat. So I dusted off my notebook and thumbed through 25 years of notes and found an easy pattern from an '80s Bainbridge Island Bond Knitters Club demonstration (we had over 200 members back then). The club knit a lot of hats for the Caps For Kids program and one of the members showed us how to knit hats one right after the other saving the finishing for tv time in the evening. She used KP3 or KP4 depending on the yarn.

Since I've got a Knitking PC Bulky (aka Brother 260) I decided I'd change the pattern a bit to suit the machine and yarn, which is a large stash of Red Heart yarn a family member passed on to me when she quit knitting, and some Woolese, basically anything worsted will do. Plus since I had a lot of hats to make I decided to do it the production way.

I cast on 38 - 38 at T8.1 and knit one row plain, in other words no e-wrap or closed cast on method, you are going to unravel the first two rows anyway...I'll explain later in the pattern.

I hung the cast on comb with 2 large weights and proceeded to knit 130 rows. Make sure the yarn leading to the carriage is free of the hooks on cast on comb before you knit the second row.

Then knit one row of contrasting yarn, or ravel cord if you have it. Reset your row counter 000. Change colors for the next hat and knit a total of 130 rows moving the cast on comb and edge weights as needed.

You can also just start knitting with the next color which I show here. I just do an overhand knot (see edge where I tied black and white together) to join both yarn ends together so they stay snug but are easy to undo later if I need to.

Then I knit another row of contrasting yarn or ravel cord to seperate each hat or just change colors and keep knitting hats. In the picture below you can see the brown, peach, and black hat all joined together like a long scarf piling up under the knitting machine.

Then I take this extraordinarily long piece of knitting and sit down in front of the TV to do some hand finishing while I watch the news or another football game or even better Extreme Loggers, or Deadliest Catch (knitting gives me something to do when hubby has the remote).

Here is what I do to finish the hats:

(when starting on the second hat you start again from the ***)

***I first unraveled 2 to 3 rows and then picked up all the sts on a suitable circular needle (I think I used size 8 or 9, and you can easily use straight needles I just prefer circulars).

Row 1: K2 tog, all across the row (decreasing by knitting two sts together all the way across).

Row 2: Purl one row.

Row 3: repeat row 1.

((the above can easily be done on the machine by using the garter bar, but you have to increase sts on one end of each hat and decrease sts on the other, so it's tricky and I prefer to have hand work to do while watching tv in the evening))

Thread end of yarn onto a double eyed bodkin (yes that is what I'm using) or darning needle and push through all sts on knitting needle (you are gathering all sts), take out knitting needle and then pass darning needle through all sts one more time and pull tight.


Keeping yarn end on darning needle seam up the side using the mattress st, you are sewing a tube that is gathered at both ends.


Before you can finish the seam you have to seperate the hat you are working on from the rest of the hats, pick up sts with your knitting needle in the 3rd or 4th row down from the next color. Then you have to pull out the row of ravel cord, or just undo the last row of knitting by pulling out the first row from the color above the one you are working on. In the picture below I am pulling out the first st then I will go to the other end and snip the last sts in the row and then pull that row of sts out by pulling on the yarn tail I loosened up first.



Then I unravel the rows of sts above the knitting needle and repeat instructions from *** above, but this time you are going to sew up the seam going in the opposite direction leaving at least 3 to 4 inches clear so you can turn hat right side out before completely closing seam.






Here you see the hat turned right side out and I'm starting to close up the seam using the mattress seam and keeping edge folded inside. If the seam is showing the hat isn't reversable.







What you have now is a tube that is gathered at both ends.

I grab the long tube in the middle and pull....

















...and then grab one gathered end and push it inside the hat and pull the edges so they even out....




You put the two gathered ends together and pull the edge straight and then fold up brim, I also sew a few sts in the two gathered ends to secure them so they don't come apart in the wash, stops your hat owner from calling you asking what the hell happened to the hat!!

The top of the hat looks like a flower with 4 petals...

You can see the finished peach/white hat below, it's a cool reversable hat with an all over peach look, or a white top with a peach brim...very fashionable...ok, I confess, I ran out of peach!! I'm just using up bits and ends of yarn so occasionally I don't have enough for a whole hat and I have to invent a design element!
















If you have questions just ask!! Perhaps I can get an extra shot of something that will help you see what I'm talking about.

Oh - I almost forgot. I did some fancy knitting by inserting some variagated yarn in the middle of the hat on the green one (middle right in picture on very top of this entry), and used some left over variagated green scrap yarn and a punch card to put some color in the other fancy one (middle left same pic).

See black hat on the left with the fancy fairisle brim is the reverse of the red hat on the right....didn't have enough black!

I divided the rows by 3 and came up with 43 rows black, 43 rows fairisle MT+2, and 43 rows burgandy. It's the same hat with a black or burgandy crown and a fairisle brim, but it's reversable.

Sometimes I only have enough yarn for a hat if I combined colors, but this time I got creative and inserted a punch card and knit the middle rows using fairisle at two tension numbers larger (remember to consult your manual before trying this, I forgot to push in the MC button and wound up with two rows plain and no patterning...I forgot!).


Happy Knitting!

PS: MT+2 means Main Tension Plus Two, or T8 plus 2 = T10 (fairisle requires a little looser knitting to stretch over the head comfortably)

Blizzard 2008 in Washington State

Snow up to their knees!



We've had around 2 weeks of snow and it's about time for it to start melting. We woke up this morning to snow flakes, but by afternoon it had turned to rain so it's starting to melt in the day but since it turns so cold at night there are still problems with fresh ice on the roads every morning. Hopefully it won't take to much longer for it all to melt but I'm not going to hold my breath. We just aren't used to so much snow, we usually only get a dusting if any at all. But since it neither an El Nino 'nor a La Nina year we have what the weather men call a neutral year which is when we usually get dumped on. Happened in '96, 90' and if I remember that far back in '88 as well.

The goats are going to be so happy when the snow goes, they haven't bee getting out of their shed at all except to get a drink of water, I take them on walks so they do get exercise but not much now that it's so cold & wet on their feet! These are the 4 spring babies we kept this year to breed next fall. The mamas and the buck are in the pasture behind them.

Merry Christmas To All!!

Christmas Day 2008



It's still snowing!

We are still watching snow flakes even though it's supposed to turn to rain sometime today. The boys look like they would like some warmer & drier weather!

Merry Christmas To Everyone!!!

Double Trouble!!

The twin grandsons came to visit last weekend. It's always a great day when they come to visit us!

I have been flat on my back for what seems like months but it probably only weeks. I pulled something while scooping grain out of a can for the goats and couldn't walk or move or even call for help without pain! I finally got going to the house by slowly shuffeling, and for almost two weeks I was a couch potato before being able to get up and do anything beyond go to bed! I'm supposed to get a steroid shot in the space between the vertebra next week so hopefully I'll be on the mend real soon.

Handmade Goats Milk Soap, getting ready for a show

I've had an interesting week in making soap. I found that mixing soap is more fun than cooking, and clean up is a breeze!!

Here you can see two batches I did today. One is pale lemon yellow and the other turned out more like a butterscotch or taffy color.

The two batches are exactly the same, but the lighter color was cold processed and the darker was hot processed in a crockpot.

Below I'm stiring a small batch in a plastic bucket, this was a test to see if I liked using coconut and olive oil together, and I do!!





















Here is a small bar of soap that didn't work out too well, I'll be using this one in the house as there were lots of air bubbles in all the molds, slao see the dolphins below.


















You can see that I've got quite a few bars done, but this is only the latest batch, there is about 40 to 50 lbs of soap in boxes all shrink wraped and ready to go to the show next weekend. I will continue to do about 8lbs of soap a day for the next 4 to 5 days.

Happy Halloween!

Thursday we had a family get-together to carve pumpkins on the back porch. Grandma and both her daughters were here to help with the carving and I think everyone had a great time!

DD had a great time and is a real artist at designing and then carving her designs.

'


Grandma was cold but got her pumpkin done in record time!










Here is what they looked like later that night on the front porch. The top oen was cool with it's flames!

Natural Goats Milk Soap, made on the farm.

Here is my latest effort at making soap. I've got a small show coming up with a group of artisans and I'm trying to make as much soap as I can. Since the show is only a week away I decided to try my hand at HP or hot processed soap. I searched the Internet and found the oven method on Diane's Naturally http://www.dianesnaturally.com.au/. For those who don't know CP or cold processed soap takes 4 to 6 weeks to 'cure', while HP takes 24 hours to set up and cure. It's a lot easier to do CP but it's quicker to do HP.

As you can see from the photos below I've got what I think is a temperature problem, but I'm no expert and will ask others what this two tone soap means and if I should turn it into laundry soap (grate it all up into powder). The second photo shows the smaller molds turned out nicely, but the large block mold is discolored.

Wedding Shawl, machine knit tuck lace

My oldest daughter is getting married so I thought I'd make her a nice shawl, you cant really see it in the pictures but there is a silver thread running with the white thread. I used an old baby blanket pattern developed back before ribbers and patterning cams I'm sure as there was a lot of hand manipulation to pull three strands through three strands all the way up for six columns of sts.


You can see I deliberately killed the yarn so it would drape and for picos on he edges, I hope she likes it.

The pattern is formed by leaving several sts out of work across 100 needles on the bulky machine, knit plain for 170r and then latch up the six columns, then knit another 170r and do the same. I crochet cast off so I could have a nice edge to hang fringe, but I like the pico ends so much I decided it doesn't need anymore finishing.







I will take photos at the wedding and post them, hopefully it will show up better than it does on my bed spread.

Baby Shower & Knit Baby Blanket

Today was fun! I went to the baby shower of my DH's youngest brother and his wife. We played baby bingo, and had delicious sandwiches and soup and just visited with family and had a nice time. It helped that it was a lovely day in Washington, nice and warm with lots of sunshine.


















My baby blanket was a hit, the little ball player even looks a little like my BIL!! I knit that last night on my E6000 using T186, it turned out large enough to cover the three of them when they take those naps with the new baby in a few weeks!

Tomato & Pumpkin Fall Harvest - not exactly stellar!

Well, so much for growing tomatos this year!!
I only got one or two red ones out of the bunch,
I will say that the bushes were really healthy and there was no rust or other diseases on the plants for the first year in a long time.

Here is the largest pumpkin I've ever grown!!
It's yellow still, but it's a beaut!

This one has a lot more growing to do, don't know if it will make it as it's the middle of October already.

This one looks more like a striped watermellon, but it's a pumpkin.