In this video, we're going to learn to make
the hat that I'm wearing right now. It's called Fimmel Hat and it's designed by
Tanis Gray and it's brought to us by Dale Garn, because we're using their yarn kit in
this hat. If you would like to get your kit and your
copy of the pattern to follow along, just click the little "i" in the upper right-hand
corner that'll take you to my website. There are three different color ways available
in this kit. We can cut away to the pattern photo. That is kit number one, and I'm wearing kit
number two. These colors are really similar to kit number
one, but they're lighter colors. Then kit number three is this one, purples
and green. You can see it looks really different in this
one. This hat is so much fun to knit. This is what got me started on my obsession
with knitting Fair Isle hats. I knit these two and then I went on. I'm still in the middle of this kick to knit
more and more Fair Isle hats one after the other. I love it. Everyone I know is getting one for Christmas,
but let's talk about the kit. The kit comes with five skeins of yarn and
this is 100% alpaca. It's Dale alpaca. I really normally wouldn't think that alpaca
would be a good choice for Fair Isle because you would lose stitch definition because alpaca
is fuzzy. But this yarn is just a little bit fuzzy. You can see, there is great stitch definition
in this hat. You get five little skeins or 50-gram skeins
of yarn. By my math, that is enough to complete three
hats, but you also are going to get a mitts pattern, a matching mitts pattern. I haven't seen the mitts pattern yet, but
I understand that it's part of the kit. So, there is plenty of yarn to knit, I would
guess probably a couple of hats and a couple of mitts. But I haven't seen the mitt pattern to do
the math on that yet. Anyway, go ahead and click the little "i"
and go to my website and get your Fimmel Hat kit in the color way of your choice, and we
are going to cover chart reading and decreases. We kind of have a unique cast on and rib in
this hat, and that's all coming up next. If you have your yarn kit and your pattern,
you are ready to go. We're gonna get started with the cast on and
the unique cuff first and go into pattern reading or the chart reading in this section. First, let's go and take a close up at the
hat. This is kit number two, the lighter color,
a little bit lighter than kit number one in the pattern photo. It's a very cool design. We have pretty short floats going on the whole
time, so there is no need to work a really long float. This is something I'm pretty excited about. Look at the top of hat, isn't that gorgeous? That's how the decreases all come together. This is kit number three, the purples and
green. It looks so different, doesn't it? With the different colors. Okay. So first, we're going to get started with
the cast on. Actually, I need some yarn. This pattern has you using two different 16-inch
needle sizes and we use the smaller of the two on the cuff. We're gonna use a German cast on. So, to leave yourself enough yarn, you want
to wind the yarn around the needle like this and count, and you can count like 50 and then
multiply that by the cast on number that you need. That's a technique for anytime you're doing
that cast on. And then make the slip knot at that point
and you'll know you have enough yarn. The German twisted cast on is nice and stretchy
for hat cuffs, and sometimes...well, I know that I use it kind of as a standard in hat
cuffs even if the pattern doesn't call for it just because I like the way... I like the sturdiness and the stretch to it. So, I'm using the smaller needles and I've
got a slip knot on the needle. You're going to set yourself up like you're
doing a sling shot cast on. What I've done is I have the tail end in front
and the working yarn in back. I take my two pincher fingers and put it between
the two strands of yarn and then take these other fingers and grab the yarn that's hanging
like this. So, that's the basic set up. If you're used to the sling shot cast on,
it's a little bit more steps to it. You'll see here. I am going to do this plenty of times, so
don't worry. You first wanna go under both strands on the
thumb side, back to center, over one strand on the finger. Oops, I think I'm messing up. Hold on. You know what? I do this so automatically so many times that
to slow it down... no, I know what I did. Okay. Slip knot, pincher fingers. Okay, there we go. Under both strands on the thumb, back to center,
between the two strands on your thumb, back to center. Grab the strand on your first finger, back
to center. Under the closed strand on your thumb over
the far strand on your thumb, back to center. Drop what's on your thumb and tighten it up. Don't worry. We're gonna do this a lot more, then you set
yourself up again. I'm gonna pause a lot in this one. So in case you're following along, you can
catch up with me. Under both strands, between the two strands,
back to center. Grab the strand on your first finger, back
to center. Under the closed strand, over the far strand,
back to center. Let go of the loop on your thumb. German twisted cast on, also called Old Norwegian
cast on. Under both, between the strand on your finger,
under the closed strand, over the far strand. Drop the loop on your thumb. I'll do it this time without talking. Okay. Hopefully, that's enough so you have got it. You can practice it a little bit. You can rewind this video to get that. I want to show you that it seems like so much
in a cast on, but once you get into like the dance of it, you get the dance steps down,
it doesn't take a long time to work this cast on. You see here. So that's kind of full speed, but it will
take you a while to get there. I wouldn't expect you to get that right away. So, once you have the cast on, then we're
ready to start working the ribbing, the bottom ribbing of the cap here, and this is exactly
what we're going to work. I have a little bit of the chart printed out
so we can follow along. This is the pattern repeat. This is kind of an advanced pattern, so I
would imagine that most people have a little bit of chart reading at least. We're going to repeat this five times around
the hat and this is just a little bit of the chart here. The first round is knitting in the dark color
and in then the next round is knit, pearl, pearl, knit, pearl, pearl, knit. And the pearl stitches are in the blue color. So that's what' I'm going to show you now. This is kind of unique. I'm not sure that I've ever worked Fair Isle
and ribbing at the same time. It might be the first time. So I'm ready to work row two here. I've got my knit. I need to start with a pearl stitch in the
blue color. So I'm going to put my needle in like I'm
ready to pearl and attach my yarn, pearl, pearl. Now, I'm going to pull that yarn back so that
I have both strands in back, because we're gonna want both strands in back just so the
front of the work stays nice and I'm ready to work a knit. And then I pull the blue yarn forward to pearl,
pearl. Pull it back to knit. Blue yarn forward to pearl, pearl and back
to knit. That's the ribbing. And anytime you're working Fair Isle, I always
make sure...you want to have...keep one color consistently on the top and one color consistently
on the bottom and so that's why you notice I'm throwing this way for the lighter color
and this way for the darker color. And that's a dominant color thing and it will
make your work look more even. I always keep the lighter color on top and
make that the dominant color so that it doesn't get lost in the sea of the darker color. So that's that. And you see here on the chart that you'll
work this and you'll change to the coral for a few rounds and then you'll continue with
the blue. And then once you get past row 12, there is
no more pearling. It's all knitting at that point. What else do I wanna show you from this here
before I move on? First row completed. Okay. I wanna show you...well, let me show you on
the purple one. The chart looks really long and it looks like
you have a long way to carry each color. I got smart and I never broke the yarn after
I got smart. You can see, this is the inside of my hat
and this is the beginning of the round and it looks like, oh, well I'm done using white
here. I have a long way to go before I have to work
white again. When in fact, it actually came up really quickly. And once I learned that, I just kept carrying
all five colors all the way up the hat. And it is fine. It doesn't affect the work at all. It all ends blocking out nicely. That is just a little tip from me to you. And then once you get the ribbing finished
and you realize you're gonna carry the yarn, it's just basic color chart reading. This is one. You're gonna knit this five times around this
round of dark and then switch to coral. And then this is a good example of how short
the floats are. It goes dark, yellow, yellow, dark, yellow,
yellow. You see we're just...we're only carrying the
dark for two stitches behind the yellow. I think that's all I want to show you. I feel like I have this sample here. I feel like I'm missing something. Just one second here. This is the finished rib. Well, that's fine. If I think of it, we'll cover it the next
segment. I have this sample and I'm not sure what I
was going to show with it. But the next important once you've finished
working through the entire color chart is the decreases, and you saw how we had that
beautiful star at the top of the hat. And that's what we're going to cover next. Once you're finished with the whole hat, we're
ready to get into the decreases. Before we do that, you know, I knit up this
sample to show in the video and for the life of me, I couldn't figure out in the last segment. But I think I knit up this sample to demonstrate
switching to larger needles and I don't know why. I mean this...it didn't seem like this sample
was worth that. You're just going to grab the larger needle
and just start knitting with it until you knit all the stitches off the smaller needles,
right? Anyway, if I think of it, I guess I'll add
a note to this video, but I am showing all the techniques used. I know that much. Anyway, we are ready to start the decreases
on the hat and it's a really simple process that ends up looking very cool. Let's go ahead and take a look at the hat
again. Here we have this awesome star pattern, and
I was going to show the purple one, but the colors are kind of dark. I think it shows up better on camera with
this one. This is a little bit of chart that makes all
that happen. So I want to cover this one, I want to talk
about this. It's really pretty simple. You're going to continue to read the color
chart and then we have decreases running up this side and decreases running up this side. When I knit this, I ended up placing markers
between each section. I didn't use markers when I was knitting the
whole hat but it was easier to have a ring marker separating each section when I was
doing the decreases. So, you're going to continue doing the color
chart along with the decreases. Along this side, we have a left leaning stripe
through the box and that means SSK. On this side, we have a right leaning stripe
through the box and that's knit two together. And so, this is every row. You're going to knit two together or I'm sorry,
SSK. Work the color pattern and then the last two
stitches, knit two together. Then the next round is SSK. Work the color pattern and knit two together. You keep doing that until you're down to too
few stitches to fit around on the circular needles and you'll switch to double-pointed
needles until you just have three stitches left and then you have a double decrease here
that will leave you with just one stitch in that segment. And like I said, it ends up being pretty simple. You see here that mine looks pretty...I think
it looks pretty good. You know, everything is lining up, my SSKs
and my knit two togethers. It probably won't look like this right after
you knit it. This one is absolutely blocked and the stitches
have all been evened out. So, it looks better. It looks a lot better when you're doing decreases
and Fair Isle in the top of a hat like this. And you can take it from me because I've been
knitting one Fair Isle hat after the other, so I'm kind of an expert with this. But there's something else that I wanna mention. I have a video called Blocking Hats . Since
I've been knitting so many Fair Isle hats, I've kind of modified that for Fair Isle. The reason for that is, you know, we really
want to stretch out the floats to make everything even. The easy way to do that is a little bit different
than just drying it flat. Of course, you can still dry it flat if you
like, but this is my method. I have a candle holder, a wrought iron candle
holder that's about this tall. You can use anything that is taller than the
hat is long, anything kind of skinny. Then I put an upturn cereal bowl on top of
that and then I soak my hat in the wool wash and roll it up in a towel and squeeze out
the extra water and then I'm ready to go with blocking this. The first thing I'll do is kind of even it
out like this to get the floats kind of even, and then I've got this whole cereal bowl and
candle stick holder thing. Just put that over the top and the reason
that this works is because especially when you have Fair Isle all the way to the very
center of the hat, that will help even out those floats and let the whole thing dry flat. So once the hat is on the upturned cereal
bowl, I put my fingers in there and just kind of even out the last little bit of hat that's
hanging longer than the cereal bowl. I'm sure people have differently shaped cereal
bowls than I have, but this is what worked for me to get the whole thing to...all the
floats to even out all the way around the hat. Anyway, many thanks to Tanis Gray for letting
us use her pattern and many thanks to Dale Garn for sponsoring this video. Again, all the information for everything
you see in this video is on my website and you can get there by clicking the little "i"
in the upper right-hand corner. I'm looking forward to seeing your finished
hats. Good luck.
