the joy...

In the world of knitting there's not much more satisfaction than a great pattern, some fantastic yarn, a quick knit and just the right item for the right person.

This pattern is 'turn-a-square' by Jared Flood. It's a free download available here. It's not very difficult but the results are really effective. I love how the stripes are squared on the crown of the hat.

I learnt how to do jogless stripes. For some good advice see here or with moving pictures see here. For a couple of different options see here. Just make sure to move your marker around, so each time you knit 2 together, take the marker off before and replace it after so you're moving the beginning of the round one stitch to the left each time you change colour. Although I must admit you can see how the stripes travel... Note how the fabric pulls a bit to the left, as you can see below.

I also experienced the joy of great yarn. I love alternating a solid colour with a self-striping yarn. I managed to use some left over yarn as the main yarn and delved in to the world of noro for the stripes. All I can say is trust the noro. I kept wanting to hurry the colour changes but I resisted :-) Although I must admit that I rewound the yarn so that I was sure to get some of the green.

It's slightly too big for good old RP, who knows it was such a quick knit I might try it again with half an inch less. We'll see...

But it's just the thing for his cold, early starts. And it was a complete surprise: in the words of Giggi 'mum are you doing your sneaky knitting?'