Sea Anemone Ear Flap Hat -- Finished

What do you get when you cross an ungulate with a zoantharia? An Anemone ear flap hat! Sorry that is just a little zoology joke.

After being put to the back burner to make my son's hat and scarf, I finally got back to my sea anemone ear flap hat. As I posted a couple of weeks ago, I saw a really neat technique that Carla Price of the blog Knitting is a Romantic Drama used for a hat. I used that technique with a bulky yarn to make an ear flap hat with the left over Noro Hitsuji from the chullo hat I made my husband. I really like the way that it turned out -- it should be incredibly warm.

I basically adapted the ear flap hat patterns that I have done to use the tendril technique with help from notes on Carla's blog post dated 12/14/2012.

Easy Peasy!

Happy Knitting!

Sea Anemone Ear Flap Hat

Just the ear flaps done

After making Charlie's Chullo, I had tons of yarn left over. I bought three skeins of it, knowing that I was going to be cutting out all of the green and I only used 100 grams (equivalent of one skein). I thought of doing another Chullo for myself, but I decided I wanted to look for something different -- and something different I found!!!

I was reading some of the knitting blogs I follow and found this post by Carla Price on her blog Knitting is a Romantic Drama. BINGO! This was something different. I contacted Carla and she generously added her notes on how she created her self-designed hat. She pointed me to where she learned the stitch: a video by one of my favorite sock designers, Cat Bordhi (how did I miss that?!) And away I go. . .

I am still addicted to ear flaps, so I started directly  with the them -- no i-cord on this hat. Since the tendril is created on the knit row; I am doing my increases on the purl row. Although, both Carla and Cat made their tendrils with a set count of twists, I am being a little less rigid and twisting until it looks right as I am making them somewhat different lengths. (Anemones don't measure their little tentacles to make sure they are all exactly the same.)

I am thinking of adding a strap between the ear flaps to keep the hat tight in the Chicago winter wind. I don't want to loose this puppy! That is one nice thing that I found about the i-cord on the other hats (here and here) I made myself. If I tuck them into my coat, it helps the hat stay on in 50+ mph wind gusts. I walk across the Chicago River and the wind is always strongest there. I don't want any of my work to take a dive -- I won't go in after it.

This is a really fun project. I am taking detailed notes, so that if the hat works out, I will have a pattern to share. Who knows, maybe I will even go back and make a child size hat, too!

Happy Knitting!



How to make an tendril: 

Fig. 1

With right needle, pull yarn from back to front between 1st and 2nd stitch on left needle (Fig. 1), until you have a folded over piece of yarn about 3 to 4 inches long from fold back to knitting (Fig. 2).

Fig. 2

Fig. 3

Place your finger in the fold and twirl the yarn a few times as if you are plying it (Fig. 3).

Fig. 4

Fold it back on itself and place the loop from your finger to the left knitting needle (Fig. 4).

Fig. 5

Knit it along with the 1st stitch on the left needle (Fig. 5). One tendril made.

Fig. 6

Fig. 7

Be careful when knitting the tendril, that you keep the tendril under the needle as in Fig. 5. If you knit with the needle underneath the tendril (Fig.6), the tendril will end up on the wrong side of the fabric or the inside of the hat (Fig. 7).

Making the tendril the "wrong way" as in Fig. 6 is a little easier as the stitch is not stretched as tightly and I made several wrong and had to correct them.

Berry Pretty Star Hat

I finished the hat using my over-dyed yarn.  This is the Norwegian Star Earflap Hat by Tiennie Knits. It is a really cute design. I like it, but not a lot; and that is not the fault of the design, I like the over-dyed yarn, but this was not the right project for it. The difference between the star and the background is not crisp enough.

I made some modifications to the pattern. I started with a 4 stitch i-cord and worked up into the ear flap same as the three previous Chullos (here, here and here). The pattern is bigger than I expected. I started out with a size 8 circular needle, ripped the hat back to the earflaps, restarted with a size 7 circular and ended up changing to a 6 right after doing the purl rows. I do however, like the length of the hat. It comes down the back of my neck better than the other Chullo. It is loose enough that it does not mat down my hair when wearing it for a long time. I also put a pom pom on the top of the hat. Even though I liked the way the decreases formed a star -- the hat called for a pom pom.

I think I may end up doing another one of these in a crisper color way. I suppose a self striping yarn with a long, slow color change for the star would work better if I did not want to use a solid. I just need to make sure that all the colors pop off the back ground.

Happy knitting!