New England's Narrow Road

Washable Watch Cap Knit Inside-out

A watch cap is pretty simple to make, and can be quite boring once the casing on is done. Any knit one, purl one, pattern can take ages to finish. But it is good and easy enough for evening knitting, when no pattern has to be followed … and I could be drinking wine.

Sometimes I begin a hat with one pattern in mind and switch to another once I get going. I must have some type of ADD or something, but I am doing that a lot recently. (See the Curly Snowflake Hat)

I’m getting a start on some hand-knit Christmas presents for my kids and have wanted to knit a hat for my youngest son. I have some washable Lorna’s Laces yarn so I got started.

Beginning the ribbed watchcap — Cast on 144 stitches and knit one, purl one… on and on

I have tried to do a Tubular Cast-on, but I failed to pull it off. So, now I stick to the Old Norwegian / German Twisted cast-on, which is stretchy and nice for a hat.

I cast on 144 stitches to a size 4 needle. I’m not sure where I got that number or which hat specifically I planned to knit. I have Churchmouse Classics, Ribbed Watch Cap and Beanie pattern, which I have wanted to try, and also a Stockinette Wachcap in my Hat’s On book. Both are similar but the Churchmouse hat has a different decrease at the top, and it’s knit inside out. Neither pattern suggests that number for a cast-on, but I ended up doing the Churchmouse crown decreases. Since my stitch numbers were different I had to do some figuring.

This is “sock” yarn, and the Churchmouse cap calls for fingering yarn also, but in smaller needle sizes, with a larger number cast on. So my hat is looser. But I didn’t begin with this pattern in mind!

Crown, wrong side, which is how it’s knit

The Decreases at the Crown

I was curious as to how this type of inside-out knitting and decreasing would look. Well, if you were curious too, there you have it. In my photo above, which is the wrong side – but knit as the right side until the end – you can see the four decrease sections.

The photo above is how the hat looks when it’s turned rightside out. As I was knitting on my DPN’s I had such trouble trying to keep the yarn tight to prevent “ladders”. You can see my difficulty in the finished product. Between each decrease section there is a weird row that doesn’t look right. That is the change between DPN’s where the yarn was looser. I pulled the yarn tight to try to prevent this, but it didn’t work.

I have never had ladder problems before, and I blame the stretchiness of this yarn. I bought my Lorna’s Laces Grand Street Ink color a while ago on sale somewhere, and it’s not cheap. This yarn is nice for making washable items which can also go in the dryer. This hat is for my son who will not be washing anything by hand!

Notes and Observations

I was glad to be done knitting this hat! Haha… But, I would like to try the actual Churchmouse pattern – correct cast-on with the correct yarn – maybe in the “beanie” without the long, rolled brim. It would mean less knitting before the decreases.

Next time I would use something like Rauma Finull wool, which I use for colorwork hats. I think that would turn out very nice, but then it would need hand-washing, so couldn’t give it to my son!

There is the dilemma. Knitting for boys is tough.

finished watchcap hand knit — Finished watchcap – washed and drying

Three Little Baby Hats and Basics of Creating

My best friend has recently become a Grandma for the first time. Now I am the only one of “us” who does not have that title. I have the most children, but may never have grand babies. Who knows? I can’t blame people for not wanting to raise kids in this world. Lots of young people are sticking to raising furbabies instead.

So, I am knitting for her grand baby, and of course I am making little baby hats.

Needle size 4US, cast-on 72. I use the German Twisted CO. Go from there and create your own little hat. I guessed at height as I don’t have a baby’s head handy for trying on!

Make Them Washable!

First off, any baby items need to be easy to care for. Although hats will probably not get all that dirty, when the time comes for cleaning, they must be machine washable. We can’t expect any new parents to take the time to hand-wash anything!

All the yarn I used is sock yarn, which is washable. But then I wanted to add a pompom to the green and purple hat.

Making My Pom Pom

Is pompom two words or one? I’m trying it both ways, so I will be right at least part of the time.

Pompoms can be made without a little pompom maker gadget, but the gadget is fun and there are lots of videos to show you how to use it.

However, do you make the pompom and add it before washing, or after? If the hat is ever to be washed again… which hopefully it will be at some point …. don’t you want to know that the pompom will hold up? Yarn is dirty, so it must be washed, and the pompoms should be added once the hat is knit, before washing – unless it’s a fur pompom. That is another blog post – some you can wash, I think.

If you don’t have a pompom maker like the one in my photo below, you can make a pompom using cardboard. This blog post shows one way to do that. Some people use forks. There is lots of info out there.

If you have any hat knitting books, chances are they may include a “how to” for pompoms and tassels. My pompom maker was really too large, so I had to cut the finished pompom down quite a bit.

pompom maker wrapping yarn — Making a pompom – that would later fall apart while washing!

baby hat with pompom — Pompom which needs trimming

How to Add a PomPom to a Hat

I knew from experience that pompoms can be floppy if they are not attached correctly. And I always thought I needed to use the ends from the pompom to secure it. The secret is to use the hat yarn to go up through the pompom and back down again. To see how, check out this wonderful tutorial about “how to add a pompom to a hat”. the video is excellent.

Then I Lost My Pompom

When I began hand-washing, which is soaking really, the last hat I made, which is the green and purple one, suddenly there were bits of yarn all over the sink! The whole pompom came apart, so now the hat has nothing on top. And, I’ve wasted a bunch of yarn. And I am wondering how to finish this hat. Maybe a tassel would work.

I’m also wondering why this happened. Possibly the yarn was too silky, so the strands slipped right out.

Three little hand-knit baby hats — Baby size hats stretched over apples!

The orange and pink striped had was knit using hand-spun yarn from two different skeins. I really like the look of that one.

Two hand knit hats with pompoms — Pompom hats

I had knit the Curly Snowflake Hat and purple baby hat at about the same time, so after the pompoms were attached, I washed them together in the sink. The difference is the yarn: the big hat is wool, and the baby hat is sock. The gray pompom held up to the soak, but not the little one.

Curly Norwegian Snowflake Hat In Worsted Wool

After knitting the Skiff beanie pattern, I decided to knit the same pattern in the Watchcap style. I asked my daughter if she liked the style, since it would be for her, I wanted color input. She then was happy to give me some color ideas which ranged from “speckled white” to “gray blue”. She wouldn’t mind hand washing the hat, so I could go with beautiful and soft wool of some kind.

If you are a knitter, you may well know that many places are simply out of yarn. As we “shelter in place” due to Covid, lots of yarn suppliers are not supplying yarn. Colors can be hard to come by within our favorite brands.

In this case, I was searching for yarn by color, but also by good reviews. I have rarely knit with worsted weight yarn in the past. Quince & Co. had good reviews, and the colors I needed. This is my first experience using this yarn.

Each skein is 134 yards and I used all of the gray and most of the natural to make this hat. I had to finish the very top in the light color (see my last photo). There is not enough yarn leftover to make a nice, two-color pompom, which I think is needed. Also, I am a fairly tight knitter, so you may run out of yarn sooner.

Quince & Co. American wool yarn in "Lark" colors Storm and Audouin — Quince & Co. yarn in gray (Storm) and heather natural (Audouin)

Gray and natural double brim snowflake hat — Ribbing to make the roll brim

When I began the Skiff Watch Cap pattern, I used a needle that was too small, with the solid gray yarn. That Skiff cable pattern gives you a nice hat, but the pattern directions are difficult to follow. The long brim is the toughest part to figure out because so many size needles are mentioned. I had to tear out the first brim I knit, which was turning out to be too small, and I admit that I wasn’t really crazy about the yarn. In fact, I was thinking of returning the unused skeins. I have never returned yarn before. Neither color is really what I am looking for to knit the cable Skiff hat.

As I began the hat a second time, I used the natural color instead of the gray, which is listed as “heather”. I like the color better than the gray, but I thought it was too “dirty” looking for an entire hat.

These yarn colors just didn’t suit me for a solid color hat. This is when I decided to use up the two skeins – one gray and one natural – to make a different hat altogether. I needed a colorwork pattern that would work for 2 colors for the hat top section.

My snowflake chart — Following the chart

I’ve had this curly snowflake on my mind for some time and have planned to make a hat using it. Well, now is as good a time as any! I found the star in a section of a hat pattern in my “Hat’s On” book which is part of the Doublemassa Cap. (I am working my way up to knitting that big project.) Anyway, it’s exactly the type of Norwegian “star” I wanted for my hat.

So I copied the star part only into my knitting notebook (by hand, and made a couple mistakes) so it would be easier to read. Also, I could save it for other projects.

Rolled brim hat stitch stoppers — Beginning the snowflake pattern

To use up the yarn evenly, I made the second part of the brim gray. For the top, the gray would be the background color with the natural color used for the snowflake.

Norwegian snowflake hat in gray and heather off-white — Working my way to the crown

I like the Lark yarn much better when mixed. It seems to be excellent for colorwork knitting. And I do like the two colors together.

beginning the snowflake pattern — The snowflake pattern

How I Made This Hat

Size 6, 16 inch needle, Cast On 120 stitches (Old Norwegian / German Twisted) and join.
Knit 2, purl 2 around, in off-white for 2 3/4 inches, then gray for same length. Do more rows of white than gray, and there might be enough gray left to finish the top.
Change to size 8 needles and knit 3-4 rows around in gray.
Begin snowflake chart. Many books have snowflake charts of all kinds that are very pretty. Your pattern must fit the number of stitches. I had to add 3 rows of solid color between my snowflakes to make the stitches come out even.
Knit in gray for 2 rounds and place markers as below
Decreasing the crown: Divide into 20 sections of 10 stitches – PM at count of 10
Decrease round 1: K2tog, k6, SSK, SM, around (This is how I did the top, with knit rows between the decrease rows. The last row was a k2tog around leaving 4 stitches on each of 3 DPNs to tie off. Next time I would do the decreases differently for a smoother crown.)
The “star” is a bit big for this type of cap. In the Doublemassa, the star is used in the brim, and the hat is knit in fingering yarn.

Crown finishing with darning needle picking up stitches

Finishing off the Top

The way I did the decreases left the top of the hat puffy and lumpy looking. This hat needs a big shaggy pompom, but I have used up all the gray yarn, unless I dig into a new skein. There is not much of the natural color left either.

I have to decide if I will keep the rest of this yarn or return it.

Snowflake hat finished — Used all yarn except for small ball of natural color

Top finished image of snowflake hat with bumps and white yarn used — Very top of snowflake hat is white because I ran out of gray yarn.

This hat really needed a big pompom, so I wound a new skein of gray yarn and created a gray and white pompom. Guess I will keep this yarn. I would like to use it to make another colorwork hat. This type of hat works well in winter winds, with double brim over ears and good thickness on top.

Snowflake hat slouch pompom — With extra on top, the hat can be pulled down to look slouchy

Knitting The Triple-Patterned Watchcap in Pink and White

The Triple-patterned Watchcap pattern comes from the “Hat’s On” book. (Paid link). The book is full of fun, easy-to- difficult hat patterns.

I love the look of this little colorwork hat, but “little” is the key word here. I should have known better. I knit tightly and this is colorwork – which tends to be tighter and smaller in the end than regular knitting. I decided to knit the size “small”. It ended up being about 15 inches around, which is a child’s size.

Triple patterned watchcap small — Unfolded, finished hat

Originally I had wanted to make this for my grown daughter, who does have a smallish head, but not that small. I realized, not too far into the knit, that this hat would be too small for an adult head. I kept knitting anyway to see if I liked the pattern after all. And I did.

Reminder: Stranded knitting does not stretch much!

This small size ended up measuring 16 inches around, just as the pattern noted for the Small size. If I use the same type of yarn, same needle size (I used size 6 as the pattern suggested) then each of the other sizes should give me the correct measurements. This is good to know because I do plan to knit this one again.

Some previous knitters of this pattern had swapped out the turn edging for a braid. I almost did that too, but I’m glad I didn’t. The turn rows for the edge, which end up at the bottom of the brim, work very nicely.

The brim of the hat is very pretty with the braid which ended up at the top and row of turning stitches along the bottom. The pattern is begun with the braid, worked to the end of the brim, then the work is turned (see notes below for turning) to begin the rest of the hat. This way the brim is made to fold up.

I made the second pattern section a little taller than called for and I honestly don’t know why. I was thinking the hat would be too short since it was turning out small. A short hat is not good, but I overcompensated.

I think another row of smaller snowflakes before the top section would be nice.

The yarn I used is Arbor, by Brooklyn Tweed. I used to love this yarn, but I have moved on and no longer choose it. The colors used for this hat are Azalea and Thaw.

Doing the “Turn”

The pattern says to work the cuff pattern for so many rounds, then “turn”. There is nothing else about doing the turn, but I have notes from doing a pair of mittens which are made in this manner where the cuff turns to begin knitting the rest of the mitten.

Simply turning the project and knitting in the opposite direction is what’s called for, but if it seems daunting, here are my notes:

Turn work inside out, with needles at top.
Slip the last worked stitch from the Left needle to the Right. This stitch will be the last stitch of the round.
Cut the unused color.
Begin knitting with the main color as pattern calls for.

Three Hats in Three Different Sizes

I’ve now knit three of these Triple-pattern watchcaps. The brown hat is size XL, the green is L and the pink is S. Both the green and brown hats now belong to my daughter. She lives in New Hampshire and loves the ear coverage for cold weather.