Date: Sat, 1 Jul 1995 18:56:05 -0500 From: "L. Schweitzer" To: Multiple recipients of list Subject: KNIT: Jester's Hat Pattern (LONG) Hello from Iowa, where the weather is just fabulous. I am trying to see just *how* long I can live on a diet of Jello Fat-Free pudding snacks (chocolate/vanilla swirl). [...] CONFORMITY IS SOOOOOOO JUVENILE HAT or JESTER'S HAT (yes, this is a line from a hair color commercial) Before any one yells "plagarism!", I *know* Debbie Bliss has a Jester's Hat pattern in her Heads, Hands and Toes. Hers is a very cute hat, but it's not the same as this one--I checked. Hers is easier to make, BTW, because I used intarsia in the round and Beverly Royce's method of double knitting. (I had to do *something* to keep me occupied for 32 inches), and hats are a fun way to try out *challenging* knitting techniques. This pattern makes a long, dangly hat, with two "legs" that dangle in back like a jester's hat. The prototype is 32 inches long, but, obviously, the length is determined by how much you are willing to knit. I knit mine for a ten year old, but now my brother wants one, and I can imagine it getting verrrry long indeed (as he is 6'2") I used up almost all of 3 balls of Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride worsted (so, we have 3 balls x 190 yards/skein = 570 total yards. You will need more if you lengthen it, as I was getting toward the end of my yarn at 32 inches). I got a gauge of 4 1/2 st/inch. I suggest you do a swatch of the ribbing you like on hats. I like k1p1 rib, so I did that, and then used my stitches per inch multiplied by the desired circumference of the hat to determine the number I cast on. However, it is important that the number you cast on be divisible by 2, so add a stitch if you have to. *I* cast on 88 stitches and worked in the round in k1p1 rib for 8 inches. This produces a nice, 4 inch cuff to be turned up to have double layers over the ears. (Very important on cold, cold Iowa winternacht). At this point, you could have stripes if you wanted. I did an intarsia-in-the-round method to have 1/2 the hat white and 1/2 the hat red. I knit 44 stitches in red, m1, turn, sl1, p44 red. Add white yarn, p 43 white, p2 tog (thusly connecting the red and white blocks via the decrease). Turn, s1, k43 white. You can twist the red and white at the first join so that the seam is nearly invisible. I knit for 10 inches in this fashion. At 10 inch point, I made the "legs" using the method presented in Notes on Double Knitting. This is a good place to practice said technique, because it *doesn't matter* if you screw up slightly and connect two sides of the knitted tube by 1 mistake, as this part of the hat is utter decoration, and nothing has to fit into it like the lower, head portion. I used the technique to avoid working the two "legs" on double points. If I had used double points, I would've had to do the legs separately and keep track of rows. I hate stuff like that, so instead, I knitted halfway across the red block--22 stitches, and turned. Slip the first stitch as if to purl. This is very difficult to explain (Royce does it well in her book) but then I arranged the knitted "tube" for flat double knitting: you do this by alternating knitting and slipping stitches with the working needle--first, knit a "front" stitch (which is a knit stitch), then, with the yarn in front, slip a "back" stitch (which is a purl) as if to purl. Continue until all 44 of the red are worked. Do *not* twist red and white yarn when you come to the join. Instead, work the double knitting in the same way, until you have all 44 of the white stitches on the needle, sorta flat. The red yarn should be on the right side of the red block, and the white yarn should be on the right side of the white block. Turn. Knit the knit stitches and slip (with yarn in front) the purl stitches. Again, make no attempt to join the blocks of color. This results in two tubes, attached to the main tube at the bottom. As you get used to doing this, you will notice that you can decrease on the crotch part of the leg, and on the outside of the leg. These are the places where the stitches lay alongside each other, rather than exactly opposite) I decreased at both the crotch and outside every 7 rows. for 14 inches. I slipped the working yarn through the remaining stitches and pulled tight. I attached a white pompon to the red side, and a red pompon to the white side. You must sew together the small hole left in the crotch of the hat, and then weave in your ends. You are done, done, done, done! Go have a peice of cheesecake. This pattern is shareware. If you make this hat more than ten times, you must send me a candy bar. Take care, lisa Lisa A. Schweitzer, PC Specialist University of Iowa Lschweit@blue.weeg.uiowa.edu Iowa City, IA 52242 Business Computing Services 319-335-0872 If God invented marathons to keep people from doing anything more stupid, triathlons must have taken Him completely by surprise." P.Z. Pearce, M.D. --- This pattern downloaded from Wool Works: the online knitting compendium http://www.woolworks.org/