geekgirlmae

Tardis Hat

Original pattern: http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/tardis-hat

Needles: size 7

Yarn: Sincerely by Purl Essence Everyday; Colors: Sincerely Royal Blue, Sincerely White, Sincerely Black

Variations:

Knit flat (instead of in the round), add an extra stitch on each end for the seam

I made the ribbing 2 inches. The windows were 5 rows tall instead of 4, and the break between them was 2 instead of 1 (I needed to make the gap an even number of rows to pick up the white yarn). The break between the top window and the black was 3 rows instead of 5 (to compensate for the rows I added in the windows). I added an extra row of black then a row of blue on the top of the black strip, below the purl row (because I thought it looked better).

Also, I think I angled the decreases backwards .

When I joined the white for the topper, I also decreased at the beginning and end to get to 4 stitches (to compensate for the two stitches I added for the seam) then I joined in the round to i-cord the white.

Overall, it came out a bit loose. If I knit it again, I would either go with size 4 or 5 needles, or try to alter the pattern to reduce the width. It did turn out pretty cool though. I especially like how the decreases make it square-ish.

Size 2 needles; silver, black, and navy blue; soft yarn.

The black was Red Heart Super Soft; the blue and silver were both leftovers, I think the silver was Caron Simply Soft.

I found the pattern for the design here: http://www.braceletbookcdn.com/obr/9209/pattern.png

Forehead protector: CO 22 with silver, knit whole thing in stockinette, knit 5 rows, start pattern on right side with black, adding one stitch before and one after the pattern grid, knit 5 rows, cast off.

I think I knit the first five rows about five times until I got the width right. I don’t remember all of the iterations I went through; a side border of ten was too wide, at one point I didn’t realize the pattern was sideways, I thought about knitting it sideways, a bottom border of five rows was too wide. When I finally got it to a point I liked it, I realized I was knitting the pattern backwards. It is supposed to go from the top down, and I was knitting from the bottom up. I thought about redoing it, but I ended up just going with it. (And once I just lost track of the pattern after a few rows. The last time, I started marking my place.)

This one had the bottom border too narrow.

This one, I just lost track of where I was and screwed up the pattern somehow.

I just tied the ends of the black yarn together, I didn’t bother to weave them in since I was stitching it to the headband.

Headband: CO 120 stitches (if I did it again, I would do 60 stitches), these initial stitches will be k1p1 rib, the added stitches will be stockinette. Add a stitch at the end of each row for 9 rows, at the end of the 9th row cast on another 80 stitches knit back across and add another 80 stitches on that end. Add one stitch for the next  rows. Decrease on stitch for the next 5 rows. On the next row cast off 80 first stitches, then knit across. Cast off first 80 stitches. Decrease one stitch for 6 rows. Cast off.

I knit the first couple of rows three or four times. At first I was going to knit the whole thing in stockinette, but I decided to go with the rib so it wouldn’t curl. I left the tails stockinette because I was alright with them curling and I didn’t want them to stretch as much. I know I tried 80 stitches for the original cast on once, I think that’s the width I settled on if I was sticking with the stockinette, but I decided I needed to increase it when I switched to the rib.

This is the ‘pattern’ I actually used. 🙂

Stitch the forehead protector to the headband. Use the silver yarn, and follow the pattern on the silver piece. If you are really fancy, you can try to keep the stitches through the purl rows where they stick out, so the stitches will not be obvious from the back. I accidentally did this for part of it.