Ripple Hat

"Like a stone on a surface of a still river, driving the ripples on forever..."

Cry of a Tiny Babe -- Bruce Cockburn

A new hat design was born this past week. Built off of a couple of my previous designs and inspired by the recipient's memories of an afghan made by a grandmother.

Gathering supplies from my stash of fingering weight yarns

I have a rather generous supply of fingering weight yarn of all kinds of colors gathered over 20+ years of knitting. I went diving into that stash to find appropriate colors. I used some Jamieson's Shetland Spindrift in Black as my main (background) color and then collected an assortment of other bright colors and began to assemble them in "families". You can see the draft pattern underneath some of the yarn and knitting in the photos.

Draft pattern and cast-on 

First Latvian Braid completed

Latvian Braid (a 3 row pattern) has a lovely habit of severely twisting the yarns while working Row 2. By the end of the round you spend a lot of time spreading the yarns out in order to get enough free of entanglement to work the stitches. But, on row 3 it all starts to untwist, and by the end of that round there are no more tangles. Of course, I added a second braid which meant dealing with the terribly twisted yarn for yet another 2 rows!

Working on the body of the hat. Note how the two Latvian Braids are traveling in opposite directions

My pattern for a Latvian Braid has the "arrows" running towards the left (as in the lower braid). I opted to reverse Rows 2 and 3 for the second braid so the arrows would run in the opposite direction.

Ripples

Working up the body of the hat. The darker toned yarns had a tendency to blend into the black yarn a bit which made for fun in low light situations. Minnesota in winter is often gray, overcast or just plain dark (we currently have about 9.5 hours of visible light, with day length of 8.5 hours).

Measuring to ensure proper size and to finalize gauge

At one point I was very concerned that I might be making this hat too big (and it may turn out I was right, you never know until someone tries it on) so I transferred all 200 stitches to a string and laid it out for measuring. This was also a good chance to check gauge (stitches to the inch). So far, so good.

Vertical stripes on the crown of the hat, following the color sequence in the body of  the hat

While running this morning I had a thought to recreate the color sequence of the ripples from the body of the hat in a vertical stripe pattern on the crown. I think the effect is rather nice, reminding me a bit of a winter sunset.

Finishing off the crown with i-cord

 I often finish off hats with an inch or so of i-cord (a knitted tube) that is then tied into a knot. I thought this was a good opportunity to bring back the gold and black from the Latvian Braid.

Inside view of a color stranded hat. 

Stranded knitting has the nice bonus of adding a little extra wool (warmth) to knitted items. Over time and use those strands start felting/fulling into the hat, adding even more warmth.

Finished, unblocked hat

After this photo was taken the hat went into a warm soapy bath for a soak. Then a warm clear water rinse and it is now currently drying on a glass head near a heating vent. 

Final measurements will be taken tomorrow after this gentle blocking. I am a bit concerned the hat may be too deep (crown to edge measurement). But fit is very individual so will wait to see what the recipient thinks. Knitting is easy to adjust (undo some stitches, rip back until the right point and reknit). If it's a matter of being just a tiny bit too large either top to bottom or circumference, the hat can be fulled to shrink it down to size.