We love original hats. If you've got any patterns or pictures that you'd like to share with us then please pop them in an email to thebigknit@innocentdrinks.co.uk and we'll post the best ones for everyone to have a look at.
We'll also be uploading all of the Hat of the Week winners here. Feel free to comment on anything you see here at the bottom of each post and remember to always knit hard, knit well and knit strong.
My profound affection for these little hats led me to ask my housemates to knit a few.However, when I asked Tim & JoJo to “knit a couple of hats” I fear they may have taken it too literally. The result, you must agree, is most original. Thanks to everyone who sent in hats, I’ve really enjoyed seeing your fantastic creations. Keep your eyes firmly focused on the shelves at Sainsbury’s, the little hats will be popping up within weeks.
Tim made this card for his mum Heather who's been busy knitting us lots of hats for the Big Knit this year. We thought it was pretty special and wanted to share it with you. Thank you Tim.
I have a knitting blog and through it I have made lots of friends around the world. I thought I'd put an appeal out to all of these friends to knit me a few hats to raise some well deserved money. As I know knitters though, I figured that the offer of a yarn would probably help motivate many of them to dig through their stashes (many of them rather large) and cast on for a few hats so I am organising a raffle with yarn and knitting related prizes for the lucky winners.
Little did I know that I would end up with over 400 hats. I know that Mike has said that he wanted to see what 400,000 little hats would look like so I thought I'd give him a taster and show him what 400 look like.
I reckon that with 400,000 hats, I'd want to jump in to the pile just to see what it's like...
Thank you to Debs for sending patterns for these fine hats. They make me feel nice and cosy on this cold autumn morning. We hope that you enjoy them, and if you have any creative ideas that you would like to share, then please get in touch. Think of it like a swapsies of inspiration.
"Hellooo
Here are the patterns for the tea pot and the cake…
Starting with a nice cake
To make a ball shaped hat - cast on 28 stitches and rib two rows.
Next row: increase to 42 stitches evenly across row purl 42 stitches. Next row: increase to 56 stitches evenly across row stocking stitch 7 rows decrease to 42 stitches evenly across row purl 42 decrease to 28 stitches evenly across row purl 28 stitches decrease to 14 stitches decrease to 7 stitches on the purl row thread the wool through and pull up tightly.
To make the icing pattern in the ball shape, alternate brown and white evenly across the 7 rows of 56 stitches.
Then top off with a red cherry bobble!
And for the tea pot
Cast on 28 stitches and rib two rows in blue.
Alternate blue and white wool every two rows for 3 rows Knit one row in blue then during the next purl row decrease once somewhere in the knitting to end up with 27 stitches.
To create the flat top of the tea pot
Knit 27 stitches in white, then knit the next row to create a purl row on the right side. In blue (K1, K2tog) to end. 18 stitches. Purl one row in blue. In white (K2tog) to end 9 stitches.
Bind off tightly and sew hat side together.
Add a blue bobble.
To make the spout and handle
Knit these by using i-cord. You knit this on two double ended (cable) needles. Cast on 4 stitches, then knit a row. Instead of passing the needle over to your left hand and turning it over, push the knitting to the end of the needle and carry on knitting with the wool passed behind the knitting. If you pull as you knit, you will create a tube of knitting. Continue until you have a spout and handle the right size. Thread the wool through the four stitches, pull tightly and fasten off, threading the wool through the i-cord. Now attach to tea pot.
Here are this week’s rather spectacular hats of the week – knitted by Ann C in Bradford. What really stood out for me was Little Red Riding Hood’s wicker basket filled with cake and a little pot of butter (or at least I think this is what’s hiding under her white cloth).
We also think that it’s pretty clever how Ann has managed to bring such life to Little Red Riding Hood – with a clearly anxious expression as she is challenged by the big furry wolf with red goggly eyes and shining white teeth. Perfect.
The clock's ticking and Mike's rolling in hats. In fact we've been really happy how many hats are coming in now that the postal system is moving again, but we still need more to reach our mighty target. If you've been putting off sending yours, please get them in the post as soon as you can. We've still got a way to go on our hatometer until we can all breathe easy.
It's been great to see so many businesses getting invloved with our Big Knit project this year along with the individual knitters.
A couple of examples I've just come across are the kind people at Zoppa who have been lending a hand and some folk from the National Museums of Liverpool who've created a very colourful little slide show here (excuse the beer, it's a Friday though).
And then there are our friends at Sainsbury's who along with exclusively selling our smoothies with hats this winter have been rolling their sleeves up and helping to knit them to.
From left to right Jo Waller, Hazel Glover, Julie Wilby, Sue Leather , Martin Jackson and Front Sue Mellows Facer.
This is Sainsbury's Guisborough who have hand knitted 1700 hats alone.
It's been really motivating to see so many people joining in, young and old, business and seasoned knitter, Andrew and Margaret (and Marie of course).
We just need to keep an eye on that hatometer now.
At Fruit Towers we absolutely love this hat. It’s sitting on my desk at the moment and has attracted lots of passing interest. Mrs Mouse (as I’ve temporarily named her), was knitted by our Heather’s Mum, Mrs Callan. Mrs Callan has been busy knitting hats with the girls at St Joseph’s Convent School for the Big Knit and we can’t wait to see how they got on.
We’ve been having a little debate about whether Mrs Mouse is a fictional character and have decided that it has a fantastically Beatrix Potter-esque feel to it. After careful research on the Peter Rabbit site, I concluded that it was a pretty good match to Hunca Munca.
However I’ve since discovered that Heather’s nickname used to be ‘Mouse’ – and so maybe this is what gave inspiration for this lovely design. The mystery continues – but either way, I’m sure you’ll agree with us that this is a special hat. My favourite feature is the bonnet. And the whiskers are pretty cool too.
We'd like to share these hats with you. Whilst we took the opportunity to feel decidedly smug, it was a poignant reminder for our Mike (who's helping to open the hats and just happens to be Australian)...fingers crossed for the big one. bkc
"...London is not the best place to live for an Australian when you are beaten by England in the rugby world cup. I had hoped that I and everyone else could quickly forget about this aberration and we could all get on with our lives sledge free. But alas, this is not the case.With England going on to beat their sworn enemies in France, the impending final is a hot topic for conversation by the smoothie fridge at Fruit Towers.
I thought it timely then to show you one of my favourite groups of hats to pass by my eager eyes, a world cup special, knitted by Jane C from Sainsbury's Braintree in Essex.A very topical submission to the Big Knit, and one of my favourites.
There’s only a few days left to submit your hats, and I would really like to work some overtime next week to pay my co-workers for some bets that I may have lost on the aforementioned match, so please knit like crazy and send them in. Mike"
Some of you have been asking for some challenging hat patterns now that you’ve mastered the bobble. So I’ve made this ‘Knitting Patterns’ section in the Knitter Natter blog to upload and share some great knitting patterns. If you’ve made any creative hats and would like to share you tricks with other knitters, please send them in an e-mail, with a photo of the finished product. I’ll be uploading the best here, so it’s best to keep an eye out. Food-inspired hats always go down well last thing - Mike just showed me some Christmas Pudding hats and they looked delicious.
After Prince Andrew's visit on Monday we gave him a few hat design cards to take away. And what do you know? He gave them to Sarah (the Duchess of York) and their daughters Beatrice and Eugenie, who have sent us their designs. Witness their work below.
And here's a story about Margaret (star of our Big Knit film) trying to get the prince to wear her hat, an offer that he politely declined.
This week I thought I'd send a pic of a Thanksgiving hat, and the pattern for how it was done. We had Key Lime Pie to celebrate...not as traditional as Pumpkin but it was yummy.
Anyway, knit using the normal hat pattern, but start off with large needles, then after a few rows use medium needles, small for the middle bit, medium and back to large again. That will give you the 'dip' in the middle of the hat. It's a great cheat's way to make a hat that gets narrow in the middle, without having to reduce and increase stitches!
Once you made the body of the hat, you can crochet a brim onto the edge. Just crochet two double stitches into each cast on stitch. It's really easy! You can add a brim to any sort of hat...maybe a witches' hat for Halloween.
I'm off on holiday next week...and I'm taking my needles with me!
You might remember Sandra. She shared with us her knitting tips as a beginner - and how cleverly arranged butterflies, buttons and sequins could cover some of life's little mistakes.
Well Sandra sent me a little update and this photo of her latest hats. Here's what she told us:
"After my first two hats (made with my mother-in-law’s assistance), I felt ready to start knitting them by myself. I made my first hats a little longer than the suggested size, so that I could fold over the bottom and create a bit of a shape. The result was not bad, but a bit on the bland side.
The trouble with being able to do just one stitch (knit) is that it’s pretty impossible to do any patterns... That’s when I had a super idea. If all I could knit were plain little hats, I’d get some colourful wool – and they’d be boring no longer. It worked a treat... until the novelty wore off, that was.
Then I remembered the leftover silver string bought last Xmas. It was a bit thin so I made a new special “wool” by knitting both silver and a normal string together. The outcome was shiny. But I needed a longer lasting fix. After a blitz through the house, I managed to get enough ribbons, buttons, beads and etceteras to keep me entertained."
As much as we've been getting really into new technologies this year (like our blog, and youtube and flickr and virtual badges and hatometeres*) we still love the old stuff. Like pinboards.
Here's our Big Knit running total pinboard, it allows us to do very clever things like use upside down 9's as 6's and vice versa. Plus it's got our first ever glow in the dark hat pinned to it. I tried to capture the glow in the dark effect in motion but didn't do very well.
We can assure you it works though. It uses glow in the dark wool.
Seeing as we're talking about totals Big Knit Charlotte has asked me to let you know that our deadline to get hats to us is next Monday (October 22nd). You can find out where to post them at the bottom of this page. Hopefully the post has sorted itself out now and we'll be back on course to swap a few 9's and 6's about and top up our hatometer.
Good stuff.
*OK we're not Silicon Valley yet but we're having a good go at keeping up with the kids.
Hello. We were going to call this little hat 'fruity-saurus'. We felt pretty chuffed with our creative naming skills. But then some of the more knowledgeable people here told me that it is in fact a dragon. So we've temporarily re-named him 'green dragon'. We're on the look out for a more creative choice if you have any ideas.
The green dragon was knitted by Kate E. She also knitted us a lovely Bag-Puss design and it was definitely a close call, but green dragon eventually emerged victorious. We hope that you like him as much as we do. We think that the use of bobbles for the nose and eyes is particularly inspired. I'm going to pop him into our hat of the week box in reception. Hopefully he'll ward off any nasty things that try to enter Fruit Towers.
Things are looking up for hat-posting, it seems that awarding our first hat of the week this year to Postman Pat might have paid off after all. We got lots of exciting parcels today. I can't wait to choose next week's hat.
Here's a little film about our Big Knit project that we've just made. It involves our Andrew learning how to knit with the help of Margaret and Marie. He's a one man knitting machine now.
Wow, I love all the hats on knitter natter at the moment and I can't wait to go and have a look when they hit the shops. I hope I find an unusual one!
I haven't quite got round to knitting my niece's university hat yet, failing miserably to find out what colour Reading University scarves are! I wanted to knit a little person with a Uni scarf on. Does anyone know the colour?
So, here is a pirate instead! His beard is lenghths of wool threaded onto a knitted strip which is then attached to the bottom of the hat. I think I might have to try something like this for a sort of mad 'Cousin It' Halloween hat!
make 1 peice with mink cast on 28 sts for base and k1, p1 for 2 rows Row 1 knit : Row 2 purl : Row 3 knit across row inc evenly across by 8 sts (36 sts) Row 4 purl ss 6 rows (knit row , purl row) Sauce Row 1 k2 mink, k2 aran, k2 mink,to end row 2 p1 mink, (p4 aran, p2 mink) 5 times , p1 mink row 3 k1 mink, (k4 aran, p2 mink) 5 times, k1 mink continue in aran - purl 1st row 1st dec row k1, k2 tog, k1 to end (27sts) ss 3 rows 2nd dec row k1, k 2tog, to end (18sts) purl row 3rd dec row k2 tog to end (9 sts) break off yarn, leaving long end and thread through sts, draw up and fasten off, sew seam. holly leaves cast on 10 sts, knit 4 rows , cast off fasten in middle to form 2 leaves and sew to pudding. add red berries ( french knots x 3 ). using chocolate thread and vertical sts, embroider randomly over pud for currents.
I hope you enjoy this pattern,
Kim (one of our guest bloggers)
This week's hat - created by Pat - is this lovely little painter. We love its originality (the first ever artist design we've found) and his curly hair poking out of his hat. I'm especially impressed by his own knitted palette and paint brush complete with bristles and his bright orange bow is pretty special too.
But what really won us (or at least Mike) over with this magic number was his little smile. We'll pop him in the hat-of-the-week cabinet before we get too attached.
(I'd like to share the second part of Sandra's journey with you)
"My mother-in-law had already started my second hat. I just had to finish it, which I did with a few mistakes as I went along (haven’t yet learnt how to undo a wrong stitch without undoing the whole lot).
The result was much better then the first one. But something was still missing. I needed something big and bold to draw people’s attention away from my irregular knitting. A bright pink handmade bobble seemed to be the obvious choice. I just had to remember how to make a bobble.
The first attempt resulted in an explosion of tiny bits of wool all over the bedroom. Huh. If at first you don’t succeed, ask for technical assistance. Big Knit Charlotte came up with step-by-step instructions... and this time it worked.
Our big knit flickr group is starting to fill up nicely now. I've just found this lovely little jumper in there which reminds me of our second ever smoothie of the month. It's not quite a hat granted, but it is knitted and little and woolly.
We've also added a little widget showing some more of the photos in the group to the side of this page. Please feel free to upload your own pics if you're a knitter or wait for them to turn up in the shops and take a snap if you're a collector.
Oh the joy of technology (and good old fashioned sharing).
We'd like to show you this little hat-evolution - lovingly knitted by Judith, our Becca's mum. Judith has been busy knitting lots of great hats for us this year, and as you can see from this photo, she's been challenging herself more and more - starting at a red bobble hat and culminating in a rather lovely angel - complete with fluffy wings and its own little halo.
The bumble bee is also a keen favourite - great fluffy yellow wool gives a brilliant stripy effect and it has amazing little wings. Judith has knitted 7 of each design, so get into Sainsbury's early on the 7th November to try and find your own little strawberry/ ladybird/ cat/ angel...
Things are definitely hotting up here for the Big Knit in Fruit Towers. We're getting lots and lots of lovely little hats (see how we're doing) and competition for Hat of the Week is getting pretty fierce. In fact Australian hunk Mike (who's helping us to open the hats) had his eye of a nice little duck until we found these incredible Humpty Dumpty hats.
In fact the sheer probability of getting two lovely Humpty Dumpties in the post in one week has blown me away - and so we'd like to share these with you for this week's Hats of the Week. These little masterpieces were knitted by Dawn and Sally (left to right). We're sure you'll agree that both look pretty smart.
Just to let you know, we'll be showing off our lovely Hat-of-the-Week winners on a special pillar in Fruit Towers so that everyone gets a chance to see them. If you're passing by our door pop by and have a look.
Sonal on hello ducky
erinrae on hats off at the fete
miami hurricanes hat on be afraid