Top down short row hat in the round

Inpiration of this collection of hat comes from Furballs' Shorties and further expanded from the conecpt from the Holiday Egg collection I was designing at the time

At this time, we have Furballs' Apollo Hat, Furballs Pillar of the Pack and Once Upon a X'mas Nite for Furballs using this particular crown construction.  This unusal way of constructing the crown will have the column of  stitches straight up without converging to a point.  This affect the look of the pattern design that have it continues from body to crown

Furballs' Apollo Hat used simple stitch pattern to focus on the crown construction and to enjoy the knitting journey.  It is knitted in looser gauge from crown to brim to give it a mild flare out brim to block off the low sunset light in winter

Furballs' Pillar of the Pack is made with thicker rib and adding in lace to make the knitting more interesting.  The rib lace pattern make up a shape that look like the classical cornithian column (and yes I was watching too many archaeological documentary lol)

Once Upon a X'mas Nite for Furballs make use of basic fir tree stitch pattern and adding in picot stitch as snow effect for winter.  The crown is in stockinette stitch and make the crown more towards oval shape.  This make the fitting is slightly different.  Click here for more tree patterns and here for the Once Upon a Nite Collection

Furballs Strike by Luck 鴻運當頭 is the latest hat using top down short row in round crown construction to make the best use of hat fabric from top to bottom to have the k&p motif without the interruption of the increase line.  For more Chinese New Year stuff, please click here

Hope you will try out this unique type of crown construction.  This might just give you a surprise in fitting.  Click here to bring you to more of my knitting hat designs

MEOW MEOW until next time

Love is in the Air

Maybe it is springtime, my furballs (although they are both fixed) would love to send out more love to people around them.

More Hearts from Furballs is a continuation from another dishcloth, From Furballs with Heart.  The latter I have not published yet.  I do not know why but do not think it is good time for it.

There is a long story in the creation of More Hearts from Furballs.  Starting with some negative energy from the virtual digital world, I tried to prove that creation / design is not about copying old stitch pattern and giving it a different colour work.  There is no added value in those patterns whether they are free or paid, and if they are paid patterns, (sigh).

After doing a little research, I found the woven fabric stitch.  I think the characteristic is that there will be yarn in front of the slip stitch in the stitch pattern and thus creating a woven pattern.  The stitch also makes a very nice feel in the hand.  I then proceeded into some causal and random knitting of the stitch to try out some strange combination and eventually settled with the woven fabric stitch in More Hearts from Furballs.  I was totally captured by the texture this stitch created visually and that it retained the classic woven fabric feel.  I named the stitch Chaotic woven fabric stitch because I can not yet find a visual or pattern match to mine.  It might be known as something different to you.

The next step was to pair it up with other stitches to create an interesting surface and this proved slightly more challenging.  After several trial, eventually came up with a nice heart edge to finish the cloth. I also added in colours to make the cloth visually more interesting.  The piece could be knitted in one (1), two (2) or three (3) colours.  The pattern is basically written for three (3) colours with six (6) yarn tails to weave in.

Half of the dishcloth is in the Chaotic woven fabric stitch giving a very interesting look, the other half is mainly the interaction between stockinette and reverse stockinette stitches.  I also put in picot stitch to highlight the hearts motifs and stop the stockinette rolling with some beautiful hatch stitches. To top it up, the two half pieces and the edge is knitted in different direction, so the Chaotic woven fabric stitch look even more intrigue.

This dishcloth knit pattern is now available in my Ravelry store.

Hope you enjoy this new pattern and happy knitting :D

My Sprouting Catnips

Spring time should be here any minute and My Sprouting Catnips is a way to celebrate the warmer weather to come.

I love the curves in the pattern that is framed by a garter stitch edge square.  I love the curves so much I decided to squeeze in three stalks - one full and two partial, instead of two full stalks.  The reverse stockinette leaves wonderfully stand out from the background and fit well with the slip stitch cable stalk.

When I was designing it, I had a confidence problem knitting the wrong side rows.  This pattern is very compact and busy, so it does not have any rest row and each row, be it the right side or wrong side, has a change in stitch pattern.  It is not that difficult when knitting the right side as I can see the change, but the wrong side, oh well, it is like turning the piece every few stitches to make sure all the knits and purls fall in the right place.

This pattern is now available in my Ravelry store.

Happy knitting :)