A Bluestocking Knits

Here are two chemo hats for my friend.  Odessa is a fast knit, simple and elegant, easily memorized (even the crown shaping), and it uses only one ball of Cashsoft with quite a bit left over, so you don’t have to skimp.  I left off the beads, obviously, not sure how that would feel as a chemo hat.

The hint of cashmere makes it wonderfully soft.  And it looked so cute on Laura that I suspect I’ll be making more soon!

Shedir was rather more difficult.  I expected this, of course, from looking at all of that knotwork! but I didn’t expect to run out of yarn a full two inches before the end of the hat.  I had to pull out a good portion of it, removing one of the braid repeats, which gave me enough to finish.  (I also found not one but two knots in the ball, which with the iffy yardage leads me to wonder about Rowan’s quality control.  My gauge was spot-on.)

The pattern itself is complicated, with a lot of fiddly cable work, although the chart may be a little more off-putting than it needs to be — the reason for the numerous cable symbols being that in some places you cable over two knit stitches, and on others you work this maneuver over a knit and a purl, which is called a twist (not technically a cable, apparently), and these require different symbols.  After the first repeat, though, it all starts to make sense.

(I think there is an error on the chart, though, at round 63, which should include one of the stitch marker shifts.)

A bonus is that inside is a lovely smooth field of mostly knit stitches, very nice for sensitive heads, and a very thoughtful touch on the designer’s part.

I am actually happier with the shorter version.  I’ve heard that longer caps are better for chemo patients, to keep the head covered and I suspect to disguise the lack of hair, but I think that the cap is more flattering with it not quite so low on the forehead.  (It’s more trendy in the original length, to be sure, but for myself I prefer flattering over trendy any day, and I think that my friend does too!)  At this shorter length, it can still be worn back on the head so that it reaches the nape of the neck, but it frames the face a bit better.