When I offered to knit her either the devil or kitty hat from Stitch n' Bitch, she requested a panda hat. So I searched and searched, and never could find a pattern. At least, not an adult-sized pattern...The resulting decision to design my own led to weeks of brainstorming, and a three-day knitting marathon that produced as many versions of the hat.
The first one made you look like a comic book villain who never made it past the drawing board. All I have is a shot of it lying limply on the couch, as I started to rip it before it occurred to me to take a photo:
And the second incarnation fancied itself a sort of demented sun bonnet with aerodynamic earflaps:
Before we move on to the third manifestation of this panda hat idea, I will tell you--when knitting from scratch, oftentimes you're not near so clever as you may think you are. I thought I was being clever when, on the first hat, I did the bottom portion in a Fair Isle-intarsia combination and then switched to circulars. There would only be a small seam to sew, you see. Likewise, I thought I was being even more clever when I compensated for the lack of give in stranded knitting by adding more stitches to the second hat to knit it in the round. But I assure you, it was not clever at all. Finally, I decided I'd knit the hat flat and do real intarsia and deal with having to sew the seam. It came out splendid! Then, it sat for several weeks while I avoided weaving in ends. When those did get woven in, the hat sat for a few more weeks while I despaired over how to attach the ears.
However, it did eventually get ears. Third time's the charm:
Action shot!
As you can tell by the above picture, the yarn was pretty beat up after being knit up and ripped out so often. I actually had to throw away a portion of the second hat because I couldn't get it undone. Ultimately, the goal was achieved. My friend has her panda hat, and she's happy.
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Current update:
- Camisa is now waiting to be seamed.
- I will hopefully start on my first pair of socks soon.
- My So Called Scarf is DONE!
- And the fingerless gloves haunting my sidebar in perpetuity are now my official knitting albatross.
5 comments:
Well, I think you did a wonderful job. And you are quite clever.
it's so freakin' cute, sophia! great job! :)
Sophia, your Panda Hat is adorable! You are a great friend...You now need to submit your pattern to Stitch'n Bitch II
What a cute hat! You did a great job designing it. I second submitting it for publication.
All in favor of Sophia submitting her pattern say aye.
aye aye. Okay, who let the pirate in?
The aye's have it so sayeth the goddess of yarn.
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