My Little Orme Hat is done! Hurrah 🥳 While I write this it’s freezing outside (what a change from the 20 degrees of last week) and there was snow and ice on the ground this morning. So, although it’s April, it doesn’t feel inappropriate that I will be releasing a hat pattern on Friday.
Newsletter subscribers will be getting a discount for any of the following: Little Orme Hat, Little Orme Cowl, Little Orme Mitts, or indeed the whole Little Orme Collection which will be available on Friday as well (this already gives a discount on individual patterns, so newsletter subscribers get a double treat!). I will be sending out April’s newsletter on Friday with the discount code in it. You can sign up for the newsletter here! (Please note, this is separate from subscribing to my blog).
The different effects that come with changing colour order in stranded knitting never cease to inspire me. All three of these hats were knitted using the same four shades of Knit Picks Palette.
The Medium size uses the colours in the same positions as the mitts and cowl.
The Large size uses the dark green (Contrast Colour 1 in the mitts) for the main colour (MC) (so CC1 became MC) and then the other colours rotated round (CC2 became CC1, CC3 became CC2 and MC became CC3).
For the Small size I changed it again, going for the greatest contrast between background and pattern colour in the centre of the design as I’d really liked that effect with the Large hat. I returned to the original main colour and then swapped C1 and C3, leaving C2 where it was.
Aside from all this, you get a kaleidoscope effect (remember those cardboard tubes with the bits of glitter and plastic shapes in) due to the changing number of segments in the crown. The smallest size has five, the medium has six and the large has seven. Because of that (and maths) the angles being created at the point where the segments meet are different in each hat and so the decrease rate and shaping has to change to accommodate this – otherwise you can end up with a hat that looks more like the top of a baby’s bottle if you know what I mean! So there’s a fair bit more to writing a hat pattern in different sizes than just changing the number of stitches cast on (or at least there can be).
As well as this the yarn has arrived for my design commission – yay!! I’ve re-swatched, as it’s a slightly heavier weight yarn than I’d originally designed the garment for, played with the numbers for all nine sizes, tweaked the charts and I’m ready to cast on! ☺️ This bit is very exciting. I’ve written the opening part of the pattern and there’s a solid chunk I know I can do now following that. I could do the rest of the maths first, but I want to get it on the needles so it feels real.
Also – rhubarb and ginger jam has been made. I tried a recipe this morning that I’d not used before (from the same very traditional book my marmalade recipe is in). The ginger part is root ginger that you ‘bruise’ (or in my case, smash) then tie up in some muslin and drop in the pan with the rhubarb, sugar and lemon juice that have been steeping since the night before. The muslin bag is taken out before potting the jam up, so there is no physical evidence of the ginger but, oh my word, it’s got quite a presence!