Saturday, January 8, 2011

Ma, Lookee What I Made!

Ok, this is a first for me. I have a dear friend, Suzan, who asked me to make her a Yarmulke. I don't know if any of you out there have ever looked for patterns for knitting one of those, but they're few and far between, even with Google and the internet.

I had been busy knitting with some lovely yarn that I bought a few months ago. My son Timothy will be leaving in three short days to go to Egypt for a semester, to study abroad. Some of the things he needs to take are small gifts for people while he's there. So I was using this lovely yarn to make a scarf for him to take as a gift. The scarf reached its proper length, and I had some yarn left, so I promptly began a hat to go with it.

As I got some length on the hat, I realized I wouldn't after all have enough yarn to finish a proper hat with it! Suzan had asked for the yarmulke a few months back, so I just changed my goal midstream and continued knitting, not a hat now, but a yarmulke.

And I'm so proud of how it turned out! No pattern, just my design. It's a very simple design, but who wants a complicated design with hand-dyed yarn from Chile? Anyway, this is my first post with a pattern completely wrought by yours truly! I hope you like it!



Here are the instructions, if you would like to make one. I must say that this is such a comfortable little hat that I really didn't want to take it off!


Yarmulke

Yarn: Araucania, color Aysen (no. 827), 1 skein (If you will start with this project, you will have enough left for a nice matching scarf made with the same rib. I started with the scarf, and had to end the hat with a little bit of a scrap of other yarn. You can see it in one of the pictures!)

Needles: size 9 16" circular and DPN's, or size for gauge

Gauge: 5 sts/in. in K1 tbl, P1 rib pattern


This particular hat was knit to fit a 20" head, but it fits me, too, and my head is 22", so it has a lot of give. This is due to the very stretchy rib.

CO 100 sts on the circular needles, and join, being careful not to twist the stitches.

Row 1: *K1tbl (through back loop), P1* repeat around

Rep row 1 until work measures 3 in. from CO edge.

Place marker at end/beginning of row (if you haven't already).

Make 1 row of purl sts all around to delineate the crown of the cap.

Begin decreasing:

*K18, K2 tog, PM (place marker)* around

K 1 row

Dec row: *K to 2 sts before marker, K2 tog* around

Repeat dec row.

K 1 row

K 3 dec rows.

*K5, k2 tog, PM, K5 K2 tog, slip marker* around

K to 2 sts before marker, K2 tog

Repeat last row until there is only one stitch between markers. Remove markers at this time, and continue K2 tog until only 8 sts are left. Cut the yarn with a long tail and thread a blunt needle with it. Run it through rem sts twice, and draw it together. Use the yarn to pull together any gaps left at the end, and weave the ends through the knitting.