Many of my hats and caps are fitted with an adjustable head fitting.
Here’s how it works:
Firstly, undo the centre back knot and separate the two pieces of elastic at the centre back of the hat.
Undo the knot at the centre back of the cap.
Then put on your hat while still holding the two pieces of elastic (it may be easier to get someone else to help at this point).
Now, while the hat is on your head, tie a single knot in the elastic so that the hat fits comfortably and take the hat off without letting the knot undo.
Finally, take off the hat and secure the knot, making sure that the ends are tucked back inside the channels.
Once the knot ids tied up, tuck the ends back in.
You can repeat the process whenever necessary.
Remember that your hat will mould itself to your head to fit you with more wear and will need adjusting periodically.
This cap is made from Yorkshire Tweed and is available to buy in my online shop
I was privileged to be asked to knit for the first series of The Terror (aired 2018). This is a dramatisation of Dan Simmons’ book of the same name. It tells a dramatised story of the (real) British Naval expedition, led by Captain John Franklin in 1845, to find the North West Passage. The expedition fails and all lives are lost when the two ships, Erebus and Terror are trapped in thick ice in the depths of the polar winter.
I was asked to knit a number of Welsh Wigs, which were standard issue to Naval Officers at the time. This is a very finely knitted headpiece that mimics a wig and can be worn underneath a uniform hat, as required by the Naval officers in the story. The pattern is by Sally Pointer and is available to buy on Ravelry or she will make one for you (link below). It was a delight to knit and very satisfying to complete. This garment was used to keep the men’s heads, ears and necks warm in polar conditions.
This garment was popular at the time, so a great number were required for the characters in many “hair” colours. My knitting was for the principal actors. Many others were knitted for the crowd by a team of knitters in Europe.
Here they are being worn by the actors:
My brief was to also provide samples of authentic period (1850’s) naval and civilian knitted headwear. I was given photos and illustrations of the type of garment required and then I knitted these up into samples for the costume designer to use or have copied by the team of knitters.
Use hand-hot water with a little squirt of washing-up liquid in a bowl, sink or bucket. It’s best to wash your hat on its own in case any of the dye runs.
Gently agitate it so that the water is absorbed into the hat.
Leave the hat in the soapy water for 10-15 minutes to allow the dirt to soak out.
gently squeeze the soapy water out of the hat
Remove the hat from the soapy water and squeeze it gently to remove most of the water. Don’t twist or wring it! (That will make your hat stretch out of shape)
You may see some dye in the water.
To rinse, submerge the hat in clean hand-hot water and gently agitate. Repeat.
The water should now be clear. If it’s not, then you’ll need to rinse again.
Gently squeeze the rinsing water out of the hat and place it flat on a clean towel.
Roll the hat up inside the towel into a firm sausage shape. This will absorb most of the water out of the hat.
Lay the hat nice and flat to dry, either on a drying rack (a cake cooling rack would be fine) or on a clean flat surface.
Try not to stretch or shape your hat before it’s dry.
For many years I have been inspired by the art of M C Escher and recently was lucky enough to visit the museum in his honour in The Hague, Netherlands.
My first proper hat collection contained a fascinator based on Escher’s Mobius strip and I was a runner-up in the Hat Designer of the Year in 2009 with a similar headpiece.
The Mobius Strip headpiece from my first hat collection
The Mobius Strip fascinator as part of my entry in the Hat Designer of the Year competition 2009
Way back in the mists of time, my first maths lesson at secondary school was making 3-D mathematical models. If that’s all that maths was about, then I would have been delighted. Sadly, the curriculum moved on and it wasn’t until winter 2019 that I had an opportunity to have another go.
I discovered this book tucked away in a second-hand bookshop in Frome (lovely Town and well worth a visit.
I have translated and adapted the templates given in the book to enable me to use silk (my favourite fabric) and still get nice sharp corners and edges on each triangle piece.
I made three headpieces using different coloured silk and different sizes of kaleidocycle. One has three points in the centre, one four and one five. Each silk piece worked as a kaleidocycle when joined together (it continuously turns in on itself) and was then stitched into place on a specially made wire head fitting.
Here’s a video demo of how the kaleidocycle works.
A little bit of embellishment was added and now we have Couture Maths!
Five pointed centre
Four pointed centre
Three pointed centre
Thanks to beautiful Leah Harper for modelling these headpiece.
Link to Escher in Het Paleis museum, Den Haag, Netherlands here
I was introduced to and fell in love with spinning at a craft afternoon at my local library. I then took a class on spinning my own yarn and later on, joined my local Guild of Weavers, Spinners and Dyers.
I felt the need to start a big project and having just started to learn to spin, I thought my newly acquired skill could be put to use.
Let’s start with two books
We need to backtrack a little bit and introduce my inspiration. Since I was a teenager, I have loved Fair Isle knitting. I found that the rhythm and repetition of knitting each combination of stitches is very soothing and the end result looks a lot more complicated than it really is. Life and work often gets in the way of craft and that was the case until about ten years ago when I was drawn to a lovely book while browsing in Waterstones. I had nothing in mind, but the book just called out to me and I knew I would have to take it home.
Alice Starmore’s Book of Fair Isle knitting starts with a brief history of Shetland, Fair Isle knitting and its origins and traditions and explains some of the symbols and designs. An explanation on how to read charts for both circular and flat knitting is given and there are details on how to calculate the number of stitches needed and guidance on choosing each pattern in relation to the next and the previous one.
Then Alice Starmore moves on to discuss colour and how to choose your combinations. She shows some different ideas and where these might be found in the world around us.
There are some techniques to pick up or re-learn specially for Fair Isle knitting and these are described in superb and easy to understand language and pictures. There are now plenty of tutorials on You Tube, but if you’re away in the back of beyond without the internet, then this is the medium for you!
Next in the book comes an array of garment patterns for you to follow.
The sixth and final chapter is the one that really took my fancy: Creating your own designs. This was more like it! I read the chapter as a challenge and from that moment on, I knew I would one day design and make my own Fair Isle garment.
A couple of years later, on a holiday in Shetland, I bought a book of 200 Fair Isle designs by Mary Jane Mucklestone. This book, as well as a short introduction to the history of Fair Isle knitting, details the equipment and skills required for a successful project from casting on to blocking. Mary Jane’s book also shows you how to adjust a pattern to fit in with the number of stitches you need for a repeat, showing you where to add on or take off a column of stitches. The main part of the book is a directory of stitches, broken down by number of rows and number of stitches in the repeat. Four charts are given for each pattern: two in different colour ways and one in black and white for a single line of the pattern and one in black and white for an all-over pattern repeat. There is also a colour photo of a knitted swatch for every pattern. The difficulty was in narrowing down my choices.
In my head, I knew what style to make: a short length cardigan with long sleeves and a collar. Many measurements later, I had the dimensions of the cardigan and now, using Alice Starmore’s book, set about calculating the number of stitches I’d need to go all the way round. I thought there will be a bit of leeway with a cardigan, as I could always add on an extra centimetre or two on the buttonhole rib if needed.
The yarn
Being a bit of a coward when it comes to colour, I decided to use only natural coloured yarn. I chose five different shades of natural fleece tops: Dark brown merino, dark grey Blue Faced Leicester, light grey Blue Faced Leicester, a mid brown Manx and cream Blue Faced Leicester. All were bought from Wingham Wool Work. I found that these offered me enough choice of combinations and I could change one colour in the same pattern to achieve a different look in another part of the cardigan. Here’s one pattern repeated in a slightly different colourway, where the XOXO pattern is better defined.
Spinning this amount of fleece was quite a challenge as I was quite new to this game and consistency of spin wasn’t a skill I’d got the hang of, but having said that, the more I spun, the better I got. Who knew that would happen? I ended up with a nice light two-ply yarn of approximately fingering weight (average 20wpi). It was almost a shame when I had spun enough to make a start on the knitting. The good thing about spinning your own yarn is that if you are getting a bit short of one colour, it’s easy to spin up some more.
New Techniques
The corrugated rib was one new technique I hadn’t done before and I am so pleased with the result, that I had to do it in several different colour combinations on different parts of the cardigan.
The other new technique was steeking. To allow a cardigan to be knitted in the round, a gap has to be left at the front where the button band will go. As you get to the last stitch of the row, your yarn is wrapped around the right needle several times to leave a long loop, then the next stitch you knit is the first stitch on the following row, but with a trailing loop behind it. As you knit up the cardigan, you end up with a vertical line of Steeks (loops) like this:
These need to be cut through and sewn into the back of the work before the button band stitches can be picked up. It was quite a lot of sewing, but worth it to allow knitting in the round.
Choosing Patterns
The best part of this project was choosing the patterns to use. I didn’t want an all-over pattern or theme, but chose my favourite patterns from both books and put them together in combinations of three or five as is traditional, with a small (peerie) pattern at the top and bottom, a large pattern in the middle and medium sized ones in-between. Here are some of the combinations I chose and the work-in-progress.
As you can see, my calculations were a bit rough and ready and some patterns had to be slightly adjusted to fit in with the number of stitch repeats, so that the centre of each pattern aligned with the centre of the ones above and below and the centre back and centre front of the garment. I know I got off centre a couple of times, but that makes it very much my own cardigan and quite honestly that could only be a problem for someone else. The other thing I didn’t always remember was to repeat exactly the colour combinations for the same pattern in that section. There’s one stonking great big colour repeat mistake that I didn’t spot until several rows afterwards. Too bad!
On the whole, the sequence of pattern choices all went well until I got to the sleeves, which weren’t quite long enough, so I had to add on one last pattern before the rib cuff.
This cardigan took me about eighteen months to spin, measure and calculate and knit from start to finish. It was well worth it, except that it’s almost too warm to wear. Double thickness wool doesn’t go well with central heating indoors and is quite bulky under a thick winter coat.
Good job it’s perfect for a Scottish summer.
Please note: I learned and honed my craft in the “sod it, that’ll do” school of knitting. There are many errors and this post is not intended to show a perfect technique or finished garment.
Here’s a little tale about the early days in my spinning experience and how I managed (by great luck) to make a handspun and hand knitted hat for a film.
The film, Fanny Lye Deliver’d was released on June 26th 2020 and stars Maxine Peake and Charles Dance as Fanny and John Lye. It’s set in Shropshire in 1657. It is the story of Fanny who escapes an oppressive marriage to John when two strangers arrive in her world unexpectedly.
My friend Jane Smith who is a great hat maker for theatre, film, TV and so on took an interest when I started to learn to spin. Having previously undertaken some knitting work for another of Jane’s theatrical projects, she asked me if I could knit a hat like this image from an historical expert that the the costume designer wanted for a film. We had no dimensions, just a general shape to go on, so I was really making things up as I went along.
So I set about spinning some yarn for the project.
I chose nice dark grey Jacob tops and spun a basic two ply yarn on my Ashford Traditional wheel. It turned out to be a little thicker than double knitting, but thinner than aran. Some parts of the yarn were quite loosely spun and this gave the hat quite a nice rustic look as it was knitted up.
The remit was to produce a garment quite rough and ready and in keeping with rural seventeenth century farmer’s wear.
The Jacob fleece tops and the spun yarn.
The hat was knitted in two sections: I started with a bottom-up basic beanie shape (like the one shown in the photo but without the ribbing) for the crown, then picked up the stitches around the base of the beanie and knitted the brim from the headline outwards, increasing the number of stitches until the desired brim width was reached.
The knitted hat went off to Jane to work her magic. She dyed it a deeper shade of grey, stiffened it and blocked the crown and brim sections to look more like a puritan shaped hat.
Here are the photos from the first fitting and you’ll see that the crown shape is fine, but the hat brim is far too big and floppy, so it came back to me to have the brim unpicked to a more manageable size.
With that alteration done, the hat went back to Jane to exercise some more of her amazing blocking and stiffening skills on the hat and here it is in a couple of photos in the movie!
If you’d like to buy one of my beanie hats handknitted from my handspun yarn, then please click here
Sarah McAlister 