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The Importance of Gauge in a Floppy Brim Hat

You may remember from a few posts back, I treated myself to a copy of "Knitting in No Time by Melody Griffiths.  I bought it because I liked the look of the wrap on the cover and wanted to have a go at knitting it.  As I hadn't really knitted anything large before, I thought that I should practice on smaller projects first.  So, this is how I got on with the Floppy Brim Hat on page 34.


The pattern uses 339 Metres of Rowan Yorkshire Tweed DK (double knitting) in Revel, which is a deep purple, pure new wool. Its knitted using 3.5mm (US size 3) needles. I have neither. The wool is discontinued and the local wool shop didn’t have the needles. 
 
Not one to let a small matter of lack of material stand in my way, I deviated from the pattern a smidgen. I used some unbranded acrylic DK yarn in a lovely shade of lavender on 4mm (US size 6) needles. Did I do a gauge swatch? Now, don’t be silly, of course I didn’t.


The brim of the hat is knitted first. It is worked in two full rows followed by two partial rows, followed by two full rows and so on. The partial rows are where you only knit so many stitches then turn the knitting around and stitch back to the start. This gives a fan effect.


When the brim is complete, the base of the fan shape is used to pick up stitches for the next stage. The next stage is the main body of the hat.



The pattern said that the hat could be completed in 13 hours, with another hour for making the flower and for finishing. It has taken me twice that and more and I haven’t even started on the flower.

This is the finished hat with the back seam sewn up with mattress stitch.


Up until this point the knitting pattern has been quite straight forward. I’d coped with all the SKPOs, the YBs and the YFs but then, I read the finishing instructions. 

“Fold 11 rows just before the start of shaping in half and sew to make a tuck”. 

Fold 11 rows? In half? 

Which 11 rows? Which way do I fold, inside or out? What shaping? 

The hat body or the brim? 

I have no idea what this means. 

Oh No! I won’t be able to finish the hat! 

Oh well, guess I’ll just try it on then, I could always just skip the folding part, right? I'll just turn the brim up, it'll be fine.




Maybe not. It’s a bit on the large side. Maybe I’ll grow into it. Maybe next time, I’ll make sure I check the gauge! This project has turned into a real flop-py hat! Te He.

Bye for now

Olly
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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