Commuter Hat Project

Inspired by Franco Rios, as well as a former student, I’ve made a hat. The method used means the project can easily be stowed in a commuter bag, and worked on the bus.

Materials needed: yarn, tape, a small stick, scissors

I cut pieces of handspun into 17 pieces, each 36 inches long: eight pink, one white, eight pink.

Threads are folded in half around the stick, and taped to a surface.

So, I was working with 17 x 2, that is to say 34 threads.

Work in plain interlinking stitches, free-end braiding

I decided I like this pattern. I can count rows by the number of white hatches that appear, one set of hatches for every two rows.

After 32 rows (16 white hatches) the decrease begins

Decrease by tying threads together in pairs. I tied off two pairs every second row, and cut the ends short.
Six sets of decreases were worked, that is removing 24 threads, and ten were left. I worked those ten for two rows, and then set the piece aside.

The first strip is finished

I worked nine such pieces, and then sewed them together.

The strip curls, yes. But sewn together they get better.

Sewing up one side of the strip with a white strand

To match the white-stripe pattern, I used another strand of the same white thread. I sewed up one side of the strip before joining.
Be careful to keep the knots of the decreases all on the same side (inside) of the hat.

Join each piece to the other pieces, matching the white strip pattern with your sewing stitch.

Sewing down the other side, the piece is joined to the others. The joining stitching should look exactly like the white stripe down the center of each piece.
Once all the pieces were sewn together, I gathered the ends into a fringe or pompom.

The finished hat set over a kitchen bowl, the brim spread out

I decided to thread some elastic cord through at the brim, to make it into a tam.