The weekend before camp

This is a weekend of packing, both cubs are off to camp, and so are packing. I'm baking - last year I completely missed the memo about bringing baked goods and when we went to wave good-bye I was amazed at the parcels of home made baked goods that were being handed over. This year there was a note from school requesting such things, I suspect there was a note last year but like many school notices it never made it out of the school bag and into parental sight.

 The other thing I have been working on is soap sweaters, as it makes traveling so much easier if the soap is encased in a neat wee knitted (or crocheted) bag. I would have been skeptical about soap sweaters if Kelly had not given me one a few years ago as a birthday present. Soap sweaters are not very exciting - so I'll spare you the details and go on to the hat.

The Hope-he-never-needs-this hat is done, and fits well. Being two layers of soft squishy 2x2 rib it is surprisingly thick, with a soft rolled edge. I like that there is an air gap at the top of the hat, air is insulation and that means it should be a warm hat. Plus it fits Bear and Elder cub - who have very different sized heads.

 The orange is bright, and I'm rather pleased with how the crown worked out, I divided the stitch count up into 6, and worked pairs of decreases so they symmetrically ate up the ribs. One of those things that is much easier to do than explain.

 The junction between the two colours is a very hard straight line, and I initially picked up on the needles that I used to knit the hat with.  After a few rows I realized that the pick up row needed more yarn so it could stretch easily - so I picked up on needles 2 mm larger

 I used a twisted German long tail cast on to start the hat, see link below - just one of many many available on YouTube. This cast on leaves a little line of what I describe as purl bumps one one side of the cast on. Each of the bumps is directly in line with a column of stitches above it.

These purls bumps were where I picked up and knit the stitches in the Orange yarn. I used a crochet hook to pull the yarn through. I was a little lazy and picked up several stitches onto the crochet hook before sliding them on to a needle a few sizes larger than the one used to knit. 

I made sure I picked up two stitches for each purl rib, and two stitches for each knit rib .. then I knit the inside hat a full inch shorter than the outside hat. I knit my outside hat 7.5 inches, and the inside hat 6.5 inches - and when turned through it is only just a little shorter. I guess the inside is narrower and shorter and the knit fabric adjusts. If you want a larger difference - you may want to make the difference between the inside and outside layers greater.

There probably will be a free pattern - some time soon, but for now if you are facing winter and want to know how I picked up the stitches - hope this fills in some gaps.

take care
na Stella