The final UGA intarsia hat
... aka attempt numbers 2 and 3
My first attempt at Blake's UGA hat was just sad. The logo honestly took up a quarter of the hat. The good thing was, I learned a lot from the hat. I got the pattern right for the guage of the yarn - but I made the pattern itself too big. When I switched colors I didn't "lock" the stitched together correctly so either there would be a big gap between the colors or half of a stitch would disappear behind the other.
The hardest part of attempt number two was finding the right yarn. Attempt number one was knit with a worsted weight yarn on a size 7 needle. In order to get a fine enough guage for the logo, I wanted to knit on a size 3 needle. While I was in Salt Lake for my reunion I found the perfect yarn at Black Sheep Wool Company. It's called "Falk" by Dale of Norway. It's a machine washable wool yarn that knits on a size 3 needle -- perfect!
Attempt number two had a a near perfect logo -- I did much better with locking the stitches together when I switched colors... the part that I REALLY miscalculated was the size. I cast on 160 stitches, which resulted in a hat that would have fit Andre the Giant.
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| Attempt number two had a good logo, but the hat itself was HUGE. | |
I realized it was going to be too big right as I finished the logo... but I'd put so much work into it!! I kept hoping I'd figure out a way to fix it... I knit the hat in the round, so I couldn't fix it by just overlapping the seam when I sewed it together (but honestly... even if I could have done that, there was no saving that hat). After I started decreasing it... I realized there was no way. So I frogged the whole thing. That hurt. But it had to be done. And so began attempt number three (for you non-knitters, to "frog" something means to tear out all the stitches and to turn it back into a ball of yarn... I heard that its called "frogging" because you "rip-it, rip-it, rip-it").
My final UGA hat alongside the first attempt. Much better, don't you think?
I'm working on writing a big blurb on how I designed and knit the final hat. I'm really happy with how it came out. At the moment its on a FedEx truck/plane on its way to Georgia. Hopefully it serves the Bulldogs well at their game on Saturday. I look forward to seeing a picture of the hat in action!
(PS Sam, I promise to blog more often)