The Third Pattern

Greetings! Here is the third pattern - the one on the logo. My great aunt helped me design this hat so I named it after her. She was 99 at the time. I've made this hat four times now and I change it every time, intuitively. So please let me know if you find there are problems with this pattern. It all makes perfect sense in my head... but that isn't very helpful when it doesn't make sense on paper!

Happy knitting!

Tante Ursel’s Hat (Aunt Ursula’s Hat)

Materials:

Yarn

Needles, circular and double points

Stitch holders

Tapestry needle

Stitch markers

Choose yarn of your choice and knit a sample swatch to establish gauge. Break off yarn and block.

Start knitting the braided rim.

Multiply your gauge (stitches per inch) by three. Cast on this amount. Knit the brim in a rib pattern as follows: knit all stitches in the gauge inch except for last stitch, purl this one. So if your gauge is 6st/inch. Knit 5, purl1, three times. Turn work, and on the back knit 1 purl 5, three times. Knit one inch of the rib.

Start knitting the braid. You will separate the band into three sections and knit I-chords. Place the stitches you are not working with on stitch holder or double pointed needle. Working with the first “rib” (including purled stitches) knit 7-8 inches of an I-chord. You will increase once stitch in the second row of the i-chord and in your last row you will decrease on stitch. I found that the cords need to “plump-up” a bit or they look a little spindly in the braid.

How to knit an i-cord: using double pointed needles, knit off the first rib. Work only with the first rib hold needle with all stitches on it in left hand – push all of the stitches to the right side of the double pointed needle. Bring the yarn around the back and knit the same stitches again. Never turn the work around, only push the stitches over. This will seem counter intuitive at first, but take a look at it from all sides after an inch or two and you will see that it all falls together nicely.

As you finish each i-cord, place the stitches onto a stitch holder or double pointed needle. With new thread, repeat with the following two ribs so that you now have three separate I-cords.

Braid these. Be careful not to braid to tightly or too loosely. Once braided, transfer all stitches back onto one needle. With a new piece of yarn, begin knitting in the rib pattern again.

Knit the brim to fit one inch less than the circumfrence of your head. Measure your head – if it is 21 inches – continue knitting in the rib pattern until the entire brim measures 20 inches.

Finishing the brim. For the pink hat on the logo, here’s what I did:

Do not bind off. Leave the stitches on the needle. Block the rim very well. This will establish the shape.Once the rim is blocked, use the Kitchener stitch to sew the rim together.

For all of the other hats I made in this pattern I did not block – I just Kitchener stitched together, and it worked fine without blocking.

Once the rim is in a circular shape, pick up stitches, one for each row of the hat. Place a marker at the beginning of the round. Note: this is not the correct amount to the rest of the hat!

Figure out how many stitches you want to end up with. (The text in pink is my example)

1. What is your gauge:_______ (6 stitches)

2. Circumference of your head:_________ (21 inches)

3. Multiply these to get the initial amount to go around your head_______ (126 stitches)

4. Count how many stitches you already have on the needle. __________(84 stitches) Subtract this amount from the amount in #3. _______ (126 – 84 = 42)This is how many stitches you need to increase in round two.

Round two: Increase _______ (42) spaced evenly around the brim. You can either knit in the front and back of the stitch, or pick up a stitch. I find the second technique a nicer look. To increase evenly. I should now have 126 stitches on my needles.

Round three: Increase the amount one more time. This hat should be a little loose so I chose to increase 3 more inches. Using my gauge – 3inches x 6stitches = 18 stitches to increase. Current number of stitches 126 plus increase stitches 18 = final total 144. The final amount of stitches on YOUR hat must be divisible by 6. This has nothing to do with my example gauge – it has to do with the multiples when we bind off the hat. So let’s say you wind up with 154 stitches. Increase to 156 so that the number of stitches is evenly divisible by 6.

Once round three is established, knit 5 inches.

Finishing:

Divide the number of stitches you have by 6_______ So for me: 144 divided by 6 = 24.

Round 1Knit the number of stitches above (24) and place a marker. Repeat all the way around. You should have 6 markers.

Round 2: *knit to 2 stitches before the marker. Slip each stitch off of the left needle onto the right needle one at a time, put the left needle back through the stitches and knit the two stitches together. (Ssk) Slip the marker to the right needle knit two together. Repeat from *

Round 3: knit

Round 4: as round two

Repeat the decrease row followed by a knit row until 12 sts. Remain. Cut thread and pull through remaining stitches to bind off.

One of our participants decided she didn’t want to do the decreases for the second hat. She just did the same bindoff as the first hat and it looks fabulous. I don’t know how that would look with this hat – probably fabulous, but if you would like to do that, you will probably need to knit more like 7-8 inches of the hat before binding off.

Three more pictures of the hats:

This last hat is a fun variation of the original. I will post what I did soon.