Sand sea and sky yarn. Cat's ears hat

There was one ball, can't remember where it came from, of an interesting yarn. The label said Pebble baby DK, I think by wool craft. One white strand plied with long variegated runs of light blue and a sandy brown. Lovely effects, nice in your hands, but not enough for a cardi, so let's make hats.

After a few stitches, I realised it's OK, rather dense, on the recommended 4.0mm needles, but would be too thick to work the ribbing on 3.5mm needles. I was keen to deliver the dozen newborn hats, and thought maybe I'd do a few on the Circular Knitting Machine - mine is an Addi pro 22 peg, knits as just less than 6.0mm needles. I bet the coverage would be fine (it was)

Waded unthinkingly in to crank out the 19 st by 40 rows panel for a cat's ears hat, and hated it. All the blue fell on one side when folded, all the sand and brown on the other. Where the stripes met at the side seams, I'll leave you to picture.

Next attempt hand-knit with 5.0mm needles, 63 sts topdown. It was started with the outside of the ball, blue and white, and I'd hoped to end with the dark band of sand/brown. And would have done, if I'd used fewer stitches. This came out 12 month size, and overshot the sandy runs, finished with white, and fussy mouse wasn't keen. Rather than unpick all of it, I took it back to just above the sand, added a run of browns from the middle of the ball, and finished with sand and earth. 

This I do like. Shame I don't have a recipient in mind, who would really enjoy this. But it will be donated to the baby equipment bank and keep someone warm.

The two newborn hats in yesterday's post were knitted (54 sts on 5.0mm) from the next runs, blues and whites. To arrange the colours, I started with blue, alternated the ball thread with the tails. One came out with bands of cloud, and wide pools of water reflecting the sky - much like our very shallow beach. The other a more hazy day, with more sand and sandhills visible. 

Leaving both ends of the ball in browns and sands. I bet they'd make lovely cat's ears hats, panel 40 rows, darkest brown at the top. Out with the machine again. 

First attempt I made work for myself by cranking white to brown to white, thinking I'd find a good fold line and unpick the bits I didn't need for the ribbing. It turned out fine, hand knitting the ribs by alternating the unpicked ends until one of them ran out. But I could have made my life easier. 

Second attempt I remembered that the outside of the machine gives a good approximation to the yarn length needed for a round or a 19st row. So I wound the yarn round, chose my colour change pattern, reserved some white for ribbing, cranked out just a few more rows than I expected. Just unpicked the odd row, much nicer. Spiral knit the ribbing with the reserved white and the ball thread. Yes, I'll do this again with the right yarn. 

And the final hat was done without handknitting. The two user groups I read for this machine often ask ¿can a newborn hat be made on a 22 peg machine? The short answer is the 22 pegs are not big enough for a tube hat, the simplest to crank. But they are big enough for a cat's ear. Some users don't hand-knit as well as crank (many do). But you can convert stocking stitch to rib with a crochet hook, using the drop and latch technique. The final hurdle to overcome is to get the cast off (bind off) row loose enough. This time I crocheted an extra chain between each pair of ribs, and the whole hat will stretch to fit the intended 13.5" circumference. 

There are just two small ends of blue left, about 5g. Maybe will eke out another colour when I do the next batch of newborn hats.