Friday, August 12, 2005

Monk Hat with Pattern!

All these hats I made for the family I'd been living with in Japan, and here's the last one! I made this hat for their Dad, the Zen Buddhist Priest, hence, it's The Monk Hat :)
papahat

Supplies: 8mm 16"(40cm) circular needle
(MC)1 50gram ball of worsted weight 100% wool
(CC)1 50 gram ball of worsted weight (or slightly thicker) fluffy boucle-style yarn (I used a wool/acrylic almost eyelash blend from Filatura di Crosa, but it may be discontinued, i don't know the name) This stuff has the texture of Lionbrand Homespun, actually, but it's part wool. You could really use any other interesting, accent yarn for this part.

gauge: 10st/10cm (or 4 in). this is an estimate, actually, i have no ruler right now. Try on your hat after making the brim to test the size.

Holding together one strand each of mc and cc, cast on 48 st. Join.
Knit in garter st (RS knit, WS purl) for 7 or 8 rows, ending on a purl row.
Switch to two strands of the worsted wool (I pull one strand from the center and one from the outside) and continue in stockinette st (plain knitting) until the hat measures 8 inches from the bottom (add a few more rounds for someone with a larger head). The hat should cover your ears when you try it on at this point. If it does not, add a few more rounds.

Decrease rows and finishing:
Row 1: k6, k2tog
Row 2: k5, k2tog
Row 3: k4, k2tog
Row 4: k3, k2tog
Row 5: k2, k2tog
Row 6: k1, k2tog
Break the yarn and thread a yarn needle; run through all the stitches and pull tight.
Pull the yarn on the needle through the center hole and weave in tightly and you're done!

I love garter st brim hats :) they give the look of a folded-over brim without actually having one, but are still warm because of how the fabric pulls together and traps air.
More variations!
basichat2

The Blue/Orange hat and the Green/rainbow hat are done using one strand of Super Bulky wool.
blueorangehat

greenhat

20 comments:

spirals said...

i love your hats... and i am excited to see more fun stuff too.. i love your yarn combos. so fun... keep on knittin

Tiffachan said...

I love this hat. i'm gunna make one for my boyfriend for next winter.

Anonymous said...

Very nice. We monks still wear such things, maybe you'll be glad to know.

Thanks for the Chinese wisdom about the red thread: Take a lot of Joshua chapter 2 for the Biblical red thread too!

It's a symbol that gets around I guess!

Anonymous said...

my BF has one like it with a pompom :)

Anonymous said...

this is a great hat! it's one of my many projects for the moment...

Nikki said...

great hat! i might try to make one for my husband! check out my brand spanking new blog! ( I was hoping it could be kind of a knitting blog, but so far i have no pics up)

Unknown said...

I am a Zen Monk amd I love this hat.
Will someone knit me one please?
I'll pay, of course.
mhartsfield@prodigy.net

Anonymous said...

Thank you for this wonderful pattern. I made the hat for my husband using 2 lightweight worsted yarns at once -- one a marine blue and the other purple. It came out great. I had to make the hat larger, however, by adding some rows. It worked out fine.

Unknown said...

PLease help! I love this hat, but it says do garter stitch, knit right side one row, purl wrong side one row...isn't that stockinette? Isn't garter all knit? I'd love to make this for friends for Xmas, but better get started. If you read this, please respond to brds619@gmail.com! thanks in advance, Rachel

The Rabbit Hole said...

I was looking up free hat pattern and found this. It is absolutely adorable. And so are you. (This is a marriage proposal)

Keep up the cute,
Emma

Elizabeth Symington said...

This hat is too cute!!! I knit one as a present, but ended keeping it for myself, since it was my first hat. Thank you for sharing your pattern and for keeping it simple since I'm still very new at deciphering patterns.

Have a Merry Christmas!

Anonymous said...

I love this hat, but I was wondering about an error in the pattern, it calls for garter st, but defines garter stitch as k one row, p one row... That's stockinette, right?? The same applies when the pattern refers to stockinette stitch as "plain knitting", which would be garter stitch...

RedThread said...

Response to last poster: Because the hat is knit in the round, stockinette is knit every row, and garter stitch is created by k1 row, purl 1 row ;)

Anonymous said...

how would I go about making this bigger around? I apparently have a very large head. do the stitches just have to be divisable by 2 or would 4 be better? or will it strech out alot and the extra stiches are not really needed?

RedThread said...

To the last commenter, you could use this calculator http://www.thedietdiary.com/knittingfiend/tools/knittingHat.html to figure out how your added stitches will work for the crown shaping, but it's really quite stretchy and adding an inch or two of length should work. I'd knit the brim and try it on and see, then knit until it covers your ears before beginning the decreases.

Andrea said...

holy cow Redthread! that looks way complicated... I think i'll just keep knitting and see how much it streches. thanks for the speepy advice. I love this hat!

Andrea said...

speedy I mean lol

Mary Kwart said...

Hi! I found your pattern when Googling hats for nuns. I've made two of the hats and love them. Would it be possible to use your pattern and make hats to donate to the Tibetan Nuns Project? I support a nun in Dharamsala. Was the other nun hat project successful that used your pattern? Thank you.

Anonymous said...

Love the hat. Have made 3 now, on normal needles. Have just purchased some circular needles and have started another one. Can see where brds16 is coming from. I was a bit confused at first, but when using circular needles it all makes sense!!!

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