Furballs do not like BBQ ribs lol

Furballs are known to be picky eaters.  Moo moo and Tabby both had different taste buds.  Moo moo loved everything with diary product and baking good.  Tabby was more of international fusion and loved curry and chilli.  So both were not interested in BBQ ribs.

In the knitting world, ribs should be one of most knitted stitch pattern besides knit all in row (garter) and knit all in round (stockinette).  It starts as the most basic (k1, p1) and goes from there.  In this rib stitch collection, I used the rib stitch, rib lace and more, to knit up hats and fingerless gloves.  These rib lace patterns have the best of both world when knitting in one colour: great negative ease to hug the head for good fitting and lacy contruction gives the fabric a designer look

I started with Furballs' Apollo Beanie.  Naming is inspired by the helmet wear by Apollo, the sun god in Greek and Roman mythology.  This hat is constructed with three (3) stitch patterns. It is a top down hat with the simple ribs running from crown to body.  The ribs turn into travelling cables to make a visual band that change into broken ribs to form a short expanding brim to give some light blocking effect in winter when the sun is at a lower position in the sky

Besides the stitch patterns, the crown construction is also one of its stand out features.  Using short rows to shape the crown in two repeat sections making the construction pretty unorthodox.  

The second hat is Furballs' Pillar of the Pack.  When I was knitting up the swatch, it looked like Greek Cornithian column and there came my idea in its name.  It is a top down hat and the rib lace pattern runs from crown to brim. The lace rib pattern is a re-discovered pattern that I did a long scarf with long time ago.  I matched this lace rib pattern with a leave edge then, and this time with the hat, I just let the lace rib to shine on its own.  Fast knitting and a very forgiving fit

It has inherited the same concept in crown construction from Furballs' Apollo Hat and totally highlighted by the rib lace pattern on the side where the two repeat sections meet

Furballs' Ticky Tabby Hat  蜱斑大花貓帽 is the third hat.  This is also one of the hat in the Tabby Hat collection.  This hat is again a top down hat (getting boring now?) with the body using the rib with elongated relief stitch.  It is not lacy but rather more 3D with outstanding visual.  This stitch pattern, just like the rib lace pattern, has great negative ease and good fitting.  It is easy to fall in love with 3D relief stitch rib pattern

The crown here is a flat row bias square.  Another unorthodox construction

Furballs' Hole-ly Helmet  傻貓洞洞頭盔 is the fifth and latest design so far.  This is a bottom up hat (Finally!!) using the basic double lace rib and add in the unexpected cable stitch pattern to appeal to more knitters.  It is not a basic cable hat, but not far off.  It also comes with a pair of Furballs' Hole-ly Fingerless Gloves

All cable lines converge to the centre in crown like most typical bottom up hat and make up an interesting design on top view

Hope you enjoy this collection.  Meow meow for now :)

Furballs' Once Upon a Nite collection

Furballs' Once Upon a Nite collection used the classic fir tree stitch pattern and its variations to draw up a snowing winter night using different types of crown

The first one is Once Upon a X'mas Nite for Furballs.  It is a top down hat using short row to shape the crown. The body is knitted in rounds and ended with a ribbed brim. It is totally seamless on both RS and WS.  Ideal as a chemo hat

The second one is Once Upon a Wintery Nite for Furballs.  It has changed to a bottom up constuction.  Started with knitting in rounds all the way up from ribbed brim to stitch pattern body and ended with a simple star crown

Third one is Once Upon an Icy Nite for Furballs.  It is again constructed from bottom up and knitted in rounds all the way up.  A minimal ribbed brim and started with the body in stitch pattern.  The use of tendril make it stand out from the collection.  The crown is a CDD four (4) section mitering to the center

The fourth one is Once Upon a Snowy Nite for Furballs.  It is back to basic in the stitch pattern design and make it unique using CDD 2 (two) section mitering and three (3) needle bind off to make the decorated seam on the RS of the crown.  Suitable as chemo hat

The last one is Once Upon a Windy Nite for Furballs 2.  It uses the basic stitch pattern and seamlessly continuing into the crown shaping.  The line of decrease merges with the stitch pattern.  

Hope you enjoy the variety we offer here.  Click here for more hat design patterns and here for more tree patterns

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