There’s something really satisfying about knitting with chunky wool. The needles are big and you get progress fast. I visited Saltaire Yarns recently, and as well as a book (intended to help me bust my stash with one ball projects) I bought two balls of Cygnet Seriously Chunky in a fantastic rainbow colourway. The plan was to make Polly a hat. Neal suggested I make one similar to this fantastic hat that my mum bought for me a few christmases ago:
How could I refuse?
The yarn told me it knitted 10cm in 6 stitches with 11mm needles, but I was going to use 10mm so I added 10% onto my desired circumference, rounded up to an even number, and cast on 34 stitches.
I can’t tell if I did two or three rows of 1×1 rib, but I then just knit stockingette until it looked the right length. It looks like about 13 rows.
In order to close the top of the hat, I then attempted a three needle cast off. It’s actually quite easy, the only vaguely complicated bit is spreading your stitches evenly across two needles but ensuring the live yarn is at the pointy end. Unfortunately I forgot to actually cast off while knitting the two halves together so then had to do another row to cast off.
Then I needed to join the last side. I joined the edges with single crochet (or whatever stitch it is where you pull through the whole lot then do one single chain before moving on).
The last thing to do was make two pom poms for the corners (Swype wrote “cuteness” there instead – I think it has a point) and sew/tie them on.
I have an actual purchased plastic pom pom maker with three size settings. I took one look at it, decided it was crap, and rejected it. I just wrapped the yarn around my hand instead, and that worked fine. A hand is a much better tool anyway – it has FOUR settings not just three, plus you don’t have to pull the yarn through a damn hole.
Look how completely adorable this is:
Polly is funny with hats. If you put one on her indoors, she sort of smiles a cheeky smile and pulls it straight off. Every single time. It was hard work to get a photo here! Luckily when outside or otherwise in the cold she leaves it on, clever little thing. Same with sunglasses – she’ll only tolerate them when it’s bright and sunny.