The Hat: Dotson, but not Dottie

I fell in love with the honeycomb pattern on those last mittens and went on to knit a matching hat with the remaining yarn.

I started by typing "honeycomb" into the pattern search on Ravelry to see what others had done. I admired Mesi by Finnish knitter Suvia Simola. Here's a Flickr link to a photo. I really liked it but I wasn't sure it would suit me.




I decided that I would just start knitting and see where it went. Maybe I'd try for a tam shape. A flat top in a solid blue would provide some good negative space. Anything to avoid the pin head look of a head hugging tuque. The honey comb stitch pattern has a multiple of six stitches. After some swatching of the Malabrigo worsted, I decided to cast on 102 stitches. I knit an inch and a half of twisted rib and contemplated increasing. I knew that I didn't want a tight hat that made my head like a pin, but how would I incorporate sufficient increases into the structured honeycomb pattern?

I began by increasing to 120 stitches evenly across the last row of ribbing and then knit two repeats of the honeycomb. I wanted to make it still broader and came up with the idea of separating the next pattern repeat by a few extra knit and purl rows during which I could add an additional 30 stitches, bringing the total to 150. I'm not 100% satisfied with the resulting transition; it's not very elegant but it did the trick. I have better idea for the next time. Then I knit 4 more patterns repeats.

What to do next? I looked at the Star Tam pattern in Homespun Handknit and I had another idea. I skipped the big increase row but I did knit matching double decreases and increases spaced evenly around for about 4 inches as called for in the Star Tam pattern. This made the hat taller without changing the shape. It also broke up the dots a bit. I kept trying it on. When I felt there was enough height, I decreased fairly drastically over the final 3 inches, closing it off with a bit of a pucker. Now it reminded me of Felicity.

I wore this hat skiing this morning and got some modelling shots for you.





































































































It's high time for all this snow to melt. The skiing was horrible. We have those "waxless skis" and ended up with two inches of sticky snow appended to the bottom of our skis. Tromp, tromp tromp. I took mine off to walk back.


















PS. February Socks

I finished them and wore them skiing. Very boring plain knit dark blue 8 inch socks out of Lang Jawoll. Here on Ravelry.

Comments

Mary Lou said…
I like the hat. I just made one that is not nearly as attractive out of Malabrigo, but the cuff was too loose so I threaded elastic through it. And would klister be any better, or isn't that warm yet?
March 2, 2011 at 2:32 PM
Raveller said…
Yes, the Malabrigo doesn't have a lot of memory. I could add some elastic to this hat too, but somehow it doesn't seem to need it. Maybe the thickness of the honeycomb stitch gives the hat structure that makes up for the loose cuff?
March 4, 2011 at 9:34 PM
shandy said…
Very interesting to see how you created a "top" to your hat.
March 11, 2011 at 2:04 AM
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