This is another finished knit from my time without the Internet and the second pattern from my book. After Holly's Handwarmers, composed only of knit and purl stitches and knit completely flat, this hat introduces picking up stitches, knitting in the round, the simplest of colourwork in the form of stripes and a simple k2tog decrease, but keeps it simple by only using the knit stitch (no purls) throughout. It's knit in a quite bulky yarn to make it a quick and unfiddly knit, and to keep the hat lovely and warm.
The construction is interesting, with an elastic hat band knit sideways in garter rib, before stitches are picked up to knit the remainder of the hat bottom-up. It's one of those projects that is very quick to complete but gives a lot of visual impact in return for simplicity, and a little bit of extra decoration in the form of two buttons.
When searching for some suitable buttons for this project, I just could not find anything that was the right shape or shade. I tried wooden buttons, but the contrast was too jarring, and the best I could find was this sad and sorry choice of two:
One set were far too light a blue and too close to the green side of the blue spectrum, and the other were slightly brownish black, but crafty folks will find a way, and a rummage through my craft cupboard held the answer in the form of some acrylic paints which I mixed to an appropriate shade.
4 comments:
I LOVE this idea of painting the buttons! They look wonderful and this hat pattern is just darling.
I remember your button quandary with this hat - painting them was genius. That's one smart hat.
Clever idea painting the buttons.
Finding the perfect buttons can be so tricky! And if you have the right ones, like these, it really makes the project!
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