Concentric Circles

Yes, I know I said I was done with commissions. And yes, apparently I lied. Sometimes I just can’t help it. A co-worker of mine asked me to knit her a hat, and I obliged. I modeled it off a blue slouchy tam-ish hat I knit about eight years ago, but went bigger and slouchier per specifications. She wanted bright pink, neon green, and black together but I found it difficult to find a yarn line that had all three colors to a degree I deemed acceptable, until I remembered KnitPicks and Palette exist. It had been about seven years or so since I had ordered from that website so I had to chuck a few skeins of Stroll Tweed into my cart. Sock yarn doesn’t count as stash, right?

Initially I wasn’t super fond of the pink I used, Rose Hip. It’s a pretty color by itself, but I didn’t think it quite hit the ‘bright’ mark, but up next to the black and slightly heathered green, it works.

No pattern, I cast on what looked like enough stitches for a wide knit-one-purl-one ribbed band, then picked up stitches all the way around and increased about sixty percent, knit for about six inches total with two-row stripes of each color, then decreased. Slowly at first, but I increased the rate so it would lie pretty flat. I used the slip-stitch method for jogless (as much as possible) stripes. I knit a full round of a color, then the last stitch on the second round (or third, fourth, depending on how wide your stripes are) is slipped so there is less of a disconnect in the stripes. Not perfect, it’s hard to see in the picture but there is a little jump in the colors, but as good as is possible with stripes in the round, and something only the knitter would notice. I did the final decreases for the crown during the gallery during Sunday’s board meeting, and blocked it that night. Fingers were crossed, because the hat I was modeling it from disappeared (eaten by the couch, probably) and I was asked to make it about twenty-five percent slouchier, but she seems pretty happy with it.