Just before New Year’s Day, temperatures in Nashville dropped to the single digits. Neck warmers were no longer enough to keep us warm.

We needed hats! Wool Hats. Hats long enough to cover our earlobes.

My sons and their girlfriends (and their dogs) were still in and out of the house while on their holiday break. Between having a full house and Arctic temperatures, I decided to stay inside and knit some hats. For the first two hats I knit, I used a mix of two strands of yarn: one a variegated worsted weight and the other a complementary wool in sock weight. My sons’ girlfriends loved them.

 

I knit a few more using the leftovers from the neck warmers. More of Mom’s stash!

It’s safe to say if you were in our house during any part of the freeze, you got a hat.

A Walk-Through of How I Made My Niece’s Striped Version of the Hat

The Yarn
I pulled out all the leftover pink and chartreuse balls of yarn I had. For cooks, it’s akin to pulling out vegetables from the refrigerator and asking yourself, What can I make with these? Better yet, What are they telling me to make?

I used two to three strands of yarn for each stripe. I didn’t make a swatch first because, by now, I knew that one strand of worsted weight and two strands of sock yarn created the right gauge. Using one strand of worsted weight and one strand of DK weight worked equally well. By the way, it doesn’t matter if you run out of one of the yarns as you are knitting; just substitute something similar. Nobody will notice.

Chunky yarns are too thick for this pattern unless you go up in needle size and down in the number of cast on stitches. I stayed away from changing the plan. That would require thinking and I couldn’t do that and binge watch A Place to Call Home. Think Downton Abbey Down Under, post-war.

Ultimately, the yarns in the picture above lent themselves to the color scheme below.

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The Pattern:
All the hats were knit on size 9 needles with a cast on of 80 stitches.
Row 1: Knit 3, Purl 2. Repeat across row.
Row 2: Knit 2, Purl 3. Repeat across row.
Repeat pattern until the fabric is seven inches long and then start the decreases to shape the top.

The Decreases: 
The decreases are made while continuing in the ribbing pattern. It looks scary, but it’s not as long as you realize it is just a method to decrease 8 across a row while staying in the ribbing pattern.

Row 1 RS (Right side): K2 together, K1, P2, K3, P2, repeat across row. 72 stitches remain.
Row 2 WS (Wrong side): K2, P3, K2, P2. Repeat to end of row.

Row 3 RS: K2, P2, K2 together, K1, P2, repeat across row. 64 stitches remain.
Row 4 WS: K2, P2, K2, P2. Repeat to end of row.

Row 5 RS: K2, P2 together, K2, P2, repeat across row. 56 stitches remain.
Row 6 WS: K2, P2, K1, P2. Repeat to end of row.

Row 7 RS: K2, P1, K2, P2 together, repeat across row. 48 stitches remain.
Row 8 WS: K1, P2, K1, P2. Repeat to end of row.

Row 9 RS: K2 together, P1, K2, P1, repeat across row. 40 stitches remain.
Row 10 WS: K1, P2, K1, P1. Repeat to end of row.

Row 11 RS: K1, P1, K2 together, P1, repeat across row. 32 stitches remain.
Row 12 WS: P2 together, P2, repeat across row. 24 stitches remain.
Row 13 RS: K2 together, K1, repeat across row. 16 stitches remain.
Row 14 WS: P2 together, repeat across row. 8 stitches remain.
Row 15 RS: K2 together, repeat across row. 4 stitches remain.

Cut yarn tail to about 12-inches long. Using a blunt sewing needle, capture the remaining 4 stitches and pull the yarn through them. Do not cut the tail of yarn.

Finishing:

Lay the fabric flat, wrong side facing up. It’s time to clean up the loose threads. I tied a single knot between the strands of yarn where the color changes occurred (example: between the yellow and pink yarn) to secure them. Next, I wove the yarn ends into the ribbing for about one 1½ inches.

I snipped the remaining tails of yarn. Now it is nice and clean.

I tidied up the other loose ends in the fabric from where I had to add more yarn in the middle of a row.

Sewing up the seam:
Align the two sides of the hat together with the right sides facing. I use quilting clips to temporarily line up and attach the sides together.

Next, thread a 12-inch strand of strong, matching yarn (I use cotton yarn) through a blunt sewing needle to sew the seam. If the tail of yarn leftover from the cast on row is long enough, you can use it instead to sew the seam.

I use the “mattress” stitch to sew the two sides together. It creates a beautiful, invisible seam. To do so, pick up two horizontal bars of knitted yarn from each edge of the hat. When I get through a few inches of picked up bars, as in the picture below, I pull the sewing needle taught (but not to the point of bunching) and continued sewing.

To say it works magically sounds childish, but every time I pull that thread taught, I think, Magic.

 

The last step is to pretty-up the bottom cast on row of the hat. After making the bottom edge look neat, I turn the fabric to the wrong side, tuck in the yarn, and snip what remains.

 

On the wrong side of the fabric, a ridge will be created by the side edges that have been brought together.

How to Make a Pom Pom (without a commercial pom pom gadget)

In the olden days, we wrapped yarn around a 2-3 inch piece of cardboard to make a pom pom. Now I use a cell phone, either my husband’s or mine, depending on whether I want a 2-inch or 3-inch ball.

I usually use four or five different colors of yarn to wrap around the phone to give the pom pom more color and texture.

 

Slide the yarn off the phone or cardboard (or even a credit card– whatever is handy!). Use a 12-inch piece of strong cotton yarn to tie across the center of the wad of yarn. You need a very tight knot to keep all the threads together. I use a hemostat to hold the first knot tight. Tie a second knot to secure it.

 

Next, using very sharp scissors, start snipping the loops as shown in the photo. Once the ball emerges, start snipping it to round out the sphere. Hang on to the ends of the cotton used to tie the knot. That’s what you are going to use to attach the pom pom to the hat.

Using your sewing needle attach the pom pom to the hat. Turn the hat inside out and tie the ends to the ends remaining from bind off row. Next, I use the sewing needle to go in and out of the pom pom a couple of times to better anchor it to the hat. Weave in the ends of yarn and you are done!

There are gadgets to help you make the perfect pom pom. I used one of them to make the 1-inch balls for this scarf.

These hats are for my goddaughter Leigh and her daughter who is due in March. Looking forward to having a little girl around — and her grandmother, Becky.

You can do it, Readers! If you have questions, ask them in the Comments section.

Next up: Pot Roast

Related Posts
A Birthday Tribute for my Mother: Knitting Neck Warmers with Mom’s Stash
What to Knit for a Baby: a Hat, a Sweater and a Blanket
Sick Soup, Sometimes Known as Snow Day Soup

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