New York Minknit

Pattern: Patterned watch cap, with the Double Irish Chain pattern, from Robin Hansen’s Favorite Mittens.

Yarn: Two skeins of Colinette Cadenza, in Slate, $10/skein; 1 skein of white Zara Merino extrafine, $10; both from Downtown Yarns. If you make the brim shorter, like 1.5″ and no pompom, you could probably get away with one skein of Cadenza.

Needles: Size 4 Hiya Hiya bamboo 16″ for brim, size 8 Balene plastic 16″ for stranded colorwork, size 5 Clover bamboo 16″ for the stockinette top, and size 6 Boye DPNs for decreases. (The DPNs and stockinette top should have been on the same size needle, but I didn’t have a size 6 16″ or size 5 DPNs, hence the change.)

Project started/ended: November 10 to November 16–5 days from cast on to cast off, with 1 more day for the pompom!

This is my first stranded project–whee! I think I did a pretty good job. I’ll have to take a photo of the insides so you can see the floats. The Colinette Cadenza yarn color is beautiful–I felt sad to have to interrupt it with the pattern, but nothing was going to stop me from fair-isle-ing!

I enjoyed learning how to do stranded knitting, but I was shocked because I am normally a loose knitter, and have to go down two sizes from the recommended gauge, but on the stranded knitting, I had to go up two sizes to make the gauge. Robin Hansen’s book is very clear and helpful about how to do the actual knitting, and all in all, it went pretty well. (There were two periods of knitting rage: once, when I couldn’t get gauge and the second time when I couldn’t figure out how to decrease within the pattern–hence the solid top.)

My last two projects were with rougher yarns, so I was shocked how soft the merino felt. It was like butter! Here’s a blocking shot:

The hat is blocking over a tupperware bowl (one of a set, the smaller size is to the left) balanced precariously on a drinking glass placed over a Ms. Bento container. (P.S. That sink’s rusty corner once cut Adam’s finger so deep we had to go to the emergency room. This was early on in my knitting career, so I was actually kind of excited because I got to knit during the 4+ hours we waited, before they finally gave him stitches.) It was cool this weekend, so to speed up the drying, I started blow-drying it. You know you’ve reached a stage of insanity in your life when you’re standing in a bathroom, blow-drying a hat pulled over a bowl, balanced on a glass, on top of a thermos.