In our ongoing Variations on a Theme Challenge, we’ve talked about striping and other colorwork variations of the 1898 Hat pattern (Ravelry pattern page) that MKG knitters have made.
Before we kick off our second pattern, we’ll tackle differences in structure and weight in the 1898 Hat by our intrepid service knitters!
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Barbara Rice (babsknits126 on Ravelry) had a lonely skein of Lopi in her stash and knit it into a hat that looks like a Viking helmet! Lopi is bulky yarn so she decided the doubled ear flaps might be too thick and made the earwarmer section with one layer. She knitted a built-in I-cord on the lower edge.
Can’t you just see this in purple (with horns!) at a Vikings’ game?
Elise Frederick (skqFurElise on Ravelry) went the opposite way with her yarn choice, using doubled sport weight yarn for two hats in order to use up remnants from finished projects or UFOs she knew she didn’t really want to finish (one of them being 30 years old!).
Her navy hat, knit on size 8 needles, matches the gauge specified in the pattern, resulting in a 19″ circumference while the darker blue hat, knit on size 9s, resulted in a 21″ circumference.
Some knitters added interest to the crown of the hat, like Heike Tschautscher with a mistake stitch rib:
… and Julie Muehlberg (woolyjooly on Ravelry) with an I-cord bouquet. Julie’s version is knit on size 7 needles with West Yorkshire Spinnery Croft yarn in color Bixter.
The next hat, one of mine (artistnumber91 on Ravelry), looks like a standard hat from the outside…
…but has a secret pocket inside the headband! The pocket, which closes with a snap was created by picking up only the outside layer of the headband for 14 stitches, then both layers for the rest of the headband. The two layers of the headband were sewn together at the two sides of the pocket.
Roxanne Richardson (Rox on Ravelry) knit her variation with a two-layer crown, resulting in a reversible hat. She picked up stitches from the wrong side of only one edge of the headband to create the outer hat and so that the slipped stitch edge created a decorative transition from band to crown. The outer hat, knit with Cascade 220, is shown directly below.
She picked up stitches from the wrong side of the other edge of the headband for the inner crown. She didn’t have enough Cascade for the entire inner crown, so that was knit with some woolen-spun Zwartbles yarn:
We close with one more colorwork version, this one from Amy Jabas (knittinginpublic on Ravelry), using Plymouth Encore Worsted. She knit the slip stitches that create the fold on the headband in a different color, then added a little bit of color after joining the headband to the crown.
A warm thank you to everyone who shared their photos and descriptions and to all the knitters who are participating in our service knitting projects!
Stay tuned for Round 2 of the Variations on a Theme challenge.