geekgirlmae

Child’s Ribbed Blanket Hat with Bunny Ears

I was getting together with some friends for Easter, and I had Easter gifts for the kids. Then, the day before, I realize there was one more kid coming than I had planned for. So, of course, I decide to knit her a hat. Luckily, I have a nice little stash of Blanket Yarn.

Bernat Baby Blanket Yarn – “Pink Twist”

Size 10.5 needles

CO 32 stitches

Knit first and last stitch of every row in stockinet (for seam), knit rest of row in 2×2 rib.
Repeat for about 7.5 inches, then start decreases

Decreases: (keep first and last stitch in stockinet)
*k4, dec,* knit the same stitch as the one below; for decreases, if one of the stitches below is a knit the knit, if both are purl then purl
knit a row in pattern (same stitch as the one below)
*k3, dec*
knit row in pattern
Continue until decreasing every stitch
Cut yarn leaving a long tail. Pull tail through the remaining stitches and use it to sew seam.

I could have stopped there, it took me less then two hours knit up the hat, but I couldn’t shake the thought of how cute it would be with little bunny ears. (The ears took about twice as long as the hat.)

My first ear looked a bit more Yoda-like than bunny-like. I went back to Google and decided that I needed to alter the shape (more tear drop, less pointy) and that I needed a contrasting color for the underside of the ear. The second ear came out adorable.

Ears:

(‘back’ of ears is the underside, ‘front’ is the top)
Pick up 4 stitches on the hat, right below start of decreases
knit all in stockinet
knit 3 rows
pick up 4 stitches from the back of the ear on a second needle and start knitting in the round
knit one row
on back of ear: k1 mc, k2 cc, k1 mc (continue mc for entire front of ear)
continue about 2 inches
Increase:
on front inc 1^st and last, on back inc 1^st and last stitch in mc
you should now have 6 stitches on each needle. At this point you may want to split the front to 2 needles, 3 on each
back: k1 mc, k4 cc, k1 mc
continue about 2 inches
Decrease:
on back  dec 1^st and last in mc, front: dec 1^st and last. Leaving 4 st in front and 4 in back
cut cc and continue only in mc
k 1 round
dec 1^st and last on each side, leaving 2 on each side
dec front and back leaving 1 on each side
cut yarn and pull through remaining two stitches
stitch in tails

Repeat on opposite side of hat.

Next time: Make it a little wider: co 38. It fits alright as is, but because of the way it stretches it gets a bit of a cone-head effect. I could make it shorter instead, but I like the idea of leaving some room to grow.

The ears were worth it; it looked super adorable on her.

There’s a kid I know, and I’m pretty sure he has a knitting curse. Nothing I have tried to knit for him has turned out how I planned, starting with the baby blanket. After two tries at a minion hat this summer, I skipped a knitted gift for Christmas and got out the sewing machine (that turned out awesome).

I knit a baby blanket for his incoming baby brother, so I was determined to try again. My specialty is hats, but he’s not really fond of hats (which may be part of my problem), so I’ve had an idea for a while to knit him a stuffed animal. I already failed at that the Christmas before last, but I’ve been making a bunch of tiny monster toys since then, so I gave it another go.

I knit most of it at a knitting retreat, and I was really happy with it. Most of the people I was with looked at it, and asked if I was making a cow, and I happily responded that yes, I was making a cow. I loved how it turned out and thought it was one of the most awesome things I’ve ever made.

Then I took it with me the next time I saw my mom, and proudly showed it off. Her response: “Well…At least it’s recognizable as a dog.” She’s not the only one that thinks it’s dog. I think the main problem is the torso is too long. The tail sticking up doesn’t help any (I didn’t mean for it to do so). My mom blames the ears, says they’re too big. Actually, she first blamed the color, because it’s not the right color for a cow … because dogs are green and blue? I thought about adding horns or an udder, but I’m not sure I could pull either off convincingly, and I’d need to add another color.

Anyway, I still think it’s pretty cool, and I’m willing to go along with it being a dog. Besides, it’s not my fault; the kid is cursed.

I wanted to knit something with butterflies. So I went to the internet. Turns out there’s a stitch called the butterfly stitch.*

It wasn’t exactly what I had in mind at first, and was completely different from anything I’d done before, but it grew on me. I knit a few practice swatches, and experimented a little with different dimensions for the butterflies.

I settled on the original pattern – 5 stitches wide and 5 repeats tall. (by repeats, I mean visible strands in the butterfly wings – one row of slipping, one of knitting, well, purling.) The butterfly needs to be an odd number of stitches wide, in order to get the head in the center. I didn’t want any wider, so I tried three stitches wide but it didn’t look right. It was disproportionate and the strands were too narrow to be noticeable.

I did try three wide by three tall, but those looked more like ants than butterflies. Regardless of width, three strands tall looks more like insects.

I tried the top and bottom strands five wide and the middle strand three wide, to make them look more like a butterfly, but it didn’t work out, The middle strand wasn’t noticeable enough. One of these actually stayed in the final scarf.

Yarn: Caron Simply Soft (medium weight): 1 skein Soft Grey Heather (silver), 1 skein Charcoal Heather (darker grey)

CO 5 x 5 + 8 = 33
Stockinette first few rows
Stitches 1, 2, 32, 33: garter stitch
Stitches 3, 4, 30, 31: stockinette
The middle stitches: Butterfly stitch, 5×5, start with 3 butterflies. So, butterfly 5 stitches, stockinette 5, butterfly 5, stockinette 5, butterfly 5; the next set of butterflies stockinette 5, butterfly 5, stockinette 5, butterfly 5, stockinette 5.

Knit half the scarf, then put it on a stitch holder and knit the other half (so the butterflies face the same direction).

I originally planned to do the entire scarf in silver, but I realized that I wouldn’t have enough yarn to make the scarf as long as I wanted it. I considered buying another skein, even if the dye lot would be different, but then I settled on using a contrasting color instead. In the end I like it better this way. I really like how the color join turned out.

The hardest part ended up being joining the two halves of the scarf. I’d used the kitchener stitch once before, but I didn’t have it quite right. I didn’t really care at the time, because it was in an inconspicuous location, but for this I really wanted the join to be smooth. I practiced quite a few times until I got it right. The key for me ended up being working on the wrong side – the purl side – instead of the right side, and practicing using a contrasting color to stitch the pieces together, so that I could see my work.

In the end, the join turned out beautiful. I have to check the direction of the butterflies to make sure I have the right place.

I intended this scarf to be a Christmas gift. I did start it before Christmas, but I didn’t finish it until…much later. Part of the problem is that the pattern is repetitive enough to be boring after a while, but complex enough that I can’t do it without looking. So working on it in venues like a movie theater is not an option. Then it took me a few more weeks to master the kitchener stitch for the join.

After all that time I put into the scarf, I took a few photos of it. Then a few more. I may have gone a bit overboard. I decided that the real reason that the butterfly scarf took so long is because it wanted to go on adventures, and, well, this happened:

The Adventures of the Butterfly Scarf

*http://www.vogueknitting.com/resources/stitchionary/knit_purl/butterfly_stitch
http://knitting.about.com/od/stitchglossary/g/butterfly.htm

Triangle Shawl

• Pattern: https://glennaknits.com/2009/12/03/a-tale-of-two-scarves/
• Needle Size: 7
• Yarn:
  • Brand: Caron
  • Type: Caron Cakes
  • Color: Cake Pop (grey and blue)
• Pattern modifications
  • Edges: I didn’t garter stitch the edges. I left them stockinette because I like how it looks and the eyelets work well enough to stop the edge from rolling.
  • ‘Paired Garter Ridges’: Apparently I didn’t read the directions very well, because instead of two rows of purls with a knit row in between, I just did two purl rows.
  • Spine: When knitting the spine, I always kept it stockinette instead of purling for the pattern rows.
  • Distance between pattern rows: I used length rather than row count to determine when to start a pattern row. I purposely let it be a little organic and uneven. I went a bit longer than the length of the first two joints of my pointer finger – I counted when I was almost finished and it ended up being about 15 rows per stockinette section. (I think it varied between 12 and 18.)
  • Length: My plan was to do two full repeats of the color pattern then bind off after the next eyelet row. I was running low on yarn, so the last stockinette section ended up a bit short. I would have been fine with two skeins, but when I joined the second skein I cut it near the middle to preserve the color pattern.
  • Spontaneous modifications: I know I missed the eyelets along the spine a few times. I may have even missed eyelet at the edges a time or two. I counted the stitches on each side of the spine before the third eyelet row – I was only one off by and I corrected it in the eyelet row.

I chose this pattern because I was looking for a triangle shawl where the stripes would form V’s, to really show off the Caron Cake’s variegation. I did some design work over Thanksgiving, practicing with some kitchen cotton and figuring out my variations. I cast on when I got home from Thanksgiving, and cast off on December 23. I finished before Christmas!