Blatherskite

I’ll post some instructions for knitting the hat (boy my mood has soured considerably in the last two hours. Mandrake, Daffodil, I don’t know how you do it.)

I need to sketch out the intarsia on some graph paper and scan it and put it up here so look for it later. I learned to knit this hat from reading Elizabeth Zimmermann’s Knitting Workshop, which is an excellent book.

Materials:
1 16 inch circular needle, size 7.
Double pointed needles, size 7.
Worsted weight yarn. You need 1 ball for the main color of the hat. You will also need white yarn and red yarn for the words (of course, you can choose to knit the words in one color. It’s up to you). For my hat I used Lion Brand Cotton-Ease.

Cast on 84 stiches LOOSELY (note, you might want to cast on a few more stitches if the person you are knitting for has a larger head. Don’t overdo it though.) Knit one row, put a place-marker on your needle and join, making sure your knitting is not twisted. Knit 42 stitches, then put another place marker on the needle. Finish knitting the row to the first place-marker.

Now you are going to start your pattern. (this is where I need to insert the graph). Remember that you will knit this the opposite of the way you read it: right to left and bottom to top. This pattern has five rows.

Continue knitting around and around until you have knitted about 4.5 inches. Now you will start decreasing. On the first decrease round you will knit 10, knit 2 together, repeat all the way around. Knit one round plain. The next round: knit 9, knit 2 together, repeat until you get to stitch marker. The next round; knit plain. The next row: Knit 8, knit 2 together, repeat until you get to stitch marker. (Noticing a pattern here). Continue decreasing in this way until you have 7 stitches. (At some point you will want to put your stitches on double pointed needles.) When you have reached 7 stitches, take yarn off needles, cut yarn, thread the tail through a yarn needle, and weave in on the underside of the cap. You’re almost done!

It’s a good idea to weave in all of your loose ends at this point just to get them out of the way.

To make a hem. put the 84 stitches that you originally cast on on your needes. Thread them in through the back of the loop. Knit the constrasting color into these stitches. Knit another round. On the next round, you want to decrease slightly, so Knit 8, knit 2 together, and repeat until you get to the begining. Knit around and around until to reach 1.5 inches. Don’t cast off. Instead, cut your yarn, weave the end in. Then take the yarn off the needles carefully. Take a long piece of your contrasting yarn and tack your loops to the inside of your hat.

Viola! it’s done. If you have questions, feel free to post them in the comment section below.