The Tale Of The Jammer Hat - Part 1 - Knitting When Drinking

As mentioned in an earlier post, while at the WFTDA Nationals this year, my roommate Bone saw knitted hats that had stars on either side to look like jammer helmet pannies. She wanted one but the price didn't justify the product. If they were handmade, then it definitely wouldn't have been a bad price at all, but from the picture I saw of them they didn't look handmade at all. So I told her that I could knit on for her.

After picking out her yarn, I stalled for a little bit before I actually started casting on stitches. We're talking a couple of weeks at best, closer to a month at worst since Nationals was in the beginning of November...heh. So I casted on my stitches and decided on a K3P1 rib for the band. And this is where I hit trouble. I casted on 133 stitches (132+1 so I could knit the last stitch casted on with the first one casted on to alleviate any gap that would form since I am knitting it in the round). I should mention now that I was drinking while I started it (although that could be inferred from the title of this post).

The first few rows are a hot mess. They don't line up at all. The rest of the ribbing is mostly on par with one small exception that is too minuscule for a non-knitter to notice, which is naturally bugging me yet since I've knitted so far away from it I'm not about to rip back. Hell no. Not with all that I've done THIS far.

I solved the wonky stitch problem by making it a double thick brim. I knitted about 10 rows in the rib pattern, then I purled a row and then proceeded to knit 9 more rows in the rib pattern. On the 10th row, I picked up each cast on stitch and knitted (or purled) it with the stitch on my live row. It was slow going but PHEW! Did it ever save me from seaming! I'm not a big fan of seaming when I shouldn't have to, so if I can find a way around it I always do (hence why all my hats are now knit in the round and I've grown extremely fond of scarves with fringe...)

The only problem I see with this method is that now I'm going to want to do it to all the hats I knit from here on out. I prefer it when the brim on a hat is thicker than the rest of the hat, as is usually the case in store bought hats (though plenty of nice ones are double thick all over yum!) So at least I've now started the processes of mastering the method so that way I won't have to rely solely on clever stitches to make it look thicker.

I'm still debating if I want to double stitch the star on or if I want to actually do proper intarsia. I know how to do intarsia (although it has been a year since I've done it so I may be rusty lol), but I like the mindless aspect of just knitting. Which is the point I'm at now with the hat, I just get to knit without really thinking about it until the hat is 8 inches long. I like that. Don't get my wrong, I do enjoy knitting things that take concentration, but meh. But intarsia would make for a much nicer, neater finished product....even though it has a tendency to induce madness in me. (Madness?? THIS IS INTARSIA! heh sorry I could NOT resist). I think I'd just rather do the most efficient method with this hat so I can give Bone the finished product before Winter slips away.

My goal is to give it to her either Wednesday or Thursday. Lofty? You betcha!

So now I'm going to run off to dig out the star patterns that I have and see if I can even remotely attempt to do them properly without losing my mind. Muahahaha.