Tuesday, January 5, 2016

The third hat, or embiggening the sailor's cap

My beautiful Mary Rose sailor's cap was too small for its intended recipient. What to do - but make another!

 First, I'd like to clear up some assumptions, about the needles and yarn chosen for the hats. If you just want to see the hat, scroll down.

Knitting needles
  • I primarily use wooden needles – I have found they are comfortable in my hands, and are both slick enough and not too slippery for my use. As these can be knitted fairly comfortably (ie very few ‘tight’ stitches), there isn’t too much strain placed on the wood, so metal needles aren’t required as they may be for knitting very small garments.
  • I use both KnitPro Symfonie (double pointed and interchangeable circular) and Knit Picks Caspian (interchangeable circular) wooden needles.
  • Double pointed needles are seen in a number of 14thC paintings (see the Mary/Madonna paintings – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_knitting#/media/File:KnittingMadonna.jpg )
  • Circular needles were first patented in 1918, in the USA. They may have been used a little earlier in Europe. Knitting in the round negates the need for a purl row, which often speeds up knitting (as most stitches are done in knit). You also don’t need to change needles and hands, as you just continue knitting around, keeping track of where you row begins and ends with a stitch marker.

  • The Gagiana hat was knitted on double pointed needles. This takes a little extra care, particularly when you increase to the maximum number of stitches the pattern called for. I used point ends to ensure that I didn’t lose massive numbers of stitches whenever I lay down my knitting – important as I do a lot of knitting on the commute home each day. This hat is unlined.
  • The Mary Rose cap I wanted to knit quickly, and chose the more convenient (for me) method of using circular needles. This meant that I didn’t have to worry about the hat slipping off the double points as I went around, and I could fold it up and shove it in a bag when travelling. I made this one very quickly – in under two weeks, working in the car on the way home each day.

Wool used.
  • I chose a wool based on the weight suggested in the pattern I had followed, and needle size based on this. My knitting gauge is reasonably spot on, so I didn’t bother making a gauge swatch or felting this. This could have made a very small or very large hat, but I was willing to take the risk at this time – I can always find someone who fits a hat! When selecting wool, I made sure that I looked for a wool that was NOT machine washable – I needed the wool to be able to break down and felt, to some extent, once knitted. Superwash wool that is popular now is designed to be machine washed, and therefore resists felting. My wool came from Morris & Sons – and was chosen based on the colours that we know were used in period, in a wool that looked and felt rugged enough to be felted into a hat, in the correct weight. This was chosen in-store, so I could handle the wool prior to knitting.

 Lining
  • The silk chosen for the lining was a medium weight cream woven silk that I had at home. It was chosen mostly as a weave that may have been available in period – neither too smooth nor too rough, and comfortable to line a hat with. I cut out a square, as based on the extant Mary Rose caps. This was then tacked into the brim of the hat, just using a basic whipped stitch. I also ensured that the square had some ‘give’ towards the crown, as the hat needed to go over a head. Silk thread was used to stitch this in.

    

 Second Mary Rose Cap
  • Unfortunately, the Mary Rose cap that I made was too small for its recipient. One size does not fit all. I’ll keep it for myself, as a demonstration, and use it for future classes.
  • I reviewed the Gagiana pattern that I had adapted for the Mary Rose cap, and decided to increase the next hat by two increments. I have called this an XL pattern (with the assumption that a single stitch repeat increment would be a Large size, and the original a Medium). I then wrote out the pattern again in its entirety to ensure that I could follow the new pattern without having to calculate or count rows on the fly.
  • XL Cap has also been constructed on circular needles, again due to ease of use and portability. I knew this hat would need to hold more stitches on the needles, and did not want to additional hassle of trying to keep extra stitches on the points.
  • This hat construction has been a little slower, as my interest waxed and waned and other projects butted in.
  


Finished knitted cap.


I decided the hats still weren't felting properly, and bit the bullet - 40 degrees and a longer wash. PERFECT. So good in fact that I went back and re-felted the Gagiana hat, and it's now looking fantastic.
    
Felted knitted cap

 Then came the moment of truth - would it fit?

It's clearly too large for meeeeeeeee....(I of course had to try it on! For science!)


It fits!!! Master Giles looking very pleased with his new hat :)


Some good lessons learned with this iteration - I'm now comfortable in what and how much to felt the hats, and I adapted a pattern (and managed to write it down). I want to make another one now, and experiment with dye - probably using walnuts, but some research required (always).


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