One of my inspirations in learning how to knit stemmed from my admiration of the fair isle pattern. I’m sure that many of you are familiar with this pattern I knitting. I didn’t know it’s name until I stumbled across a great free pattern for a knit child’s hat with a fair isle pattern. This was one of the many projects I was secretly coveting and wishing I had the skills to accomplish. Once I got the proper tools and found that knitting in the round isn’t such a terrible mystery, I felt confident enough to try this pattern out.
I didn’t have time to run to my usual yarn shop as I’ve been particularly busy at work, so I was fortunate enough to squeeze a quick run to Michael’s one week-end when we visited the grandparents. I was a little nervous about the sizing of this hat, not using the yarn that was called for in the pattern. I’ve found in my crocheting forays that sometimes the gauges of yards, depending on the manufacturers, don’t necessarily align. Reading the labels on the yarn don’t necessarily yield what you expect, if you would use another manufacturer’s yarn that has the same information. Well, I decided to give it a go and see what happened.
I ended up using Paton’s Lace Yarn, which was the closest thing I could find to what the pattern called for. I found the yarn to be light, and easy to work with and the result is a beautifully delicate looking hat. I slightly modified the beginning edge of the hat to emphasize the ribbing a little more and I couldn’t find enough colors in the Paton’s lace yarn line to provide this effect so I ended up using the pattern in a monochromatic fashion. I am very pleased with the end result. I think that it ended up beautifully delicate and that the yarn is light and airy but will still keep a head nice and warm. The pattern itself was exteremely easy to follow and I found that having a pattern as distinct as this made keeping count of my stitches extremely easy. I loved watching the pattern unfold as I knit away!
However, as I had originally feared, despite making the “child” size, it ended up being just the perfect fit for my daughter’s 2-year old noggin, and certainly not able to fit my daughter for the next winter season. Sadly, I guess this just gives me an excuse to make another in a larger size, yes?