Loom knitting

I really love to loom knit. Here is a hat that I did last winter for my grandson's little sister. It is one of the first that I did with vertical stripes. They make such a warm hat and since she lives in a very cold weather state this is good. When you make the stripe hats you have to wrap some pegs, don't skip many or the inside strands are way to long, and then wrap the skipped pegs with the next color of yarn. Those strands across the inside of the hat form a padded inside which is soft and warm.

This one is also my first use of a seed stitch brim. I liked it. It turned out so nice and very different from the plain cuffed brims I normally do.

It's not hard, goes like this:

Loom with even amount of pegs (can be done on odd, you will have two stitches the same in a row, remember to wrap them the opposite of previous row)
Choice of yarn colors MC (main color) and CC (contrasting color) (two colors used in hat)

Techniques:
E-wrap
Purl stitch

Hat Cuff:

Attach yarn to holding peg.

First row: Begin by e-wrapping all the pegs on your loom.

Row 2: With out side pegs facing you purl the first peg, e-wrap the next peg, continue these two stitches around the loom till you get back to the first purled peg

Row 3: E-wrap the purl stitches, purl the e-wrapped stitches

Continue with row 3 till piece is as long as you want the cuff to be, bring up bottom row for cuff, work off bottom row on pegs. You can make a very long cuff or short one. It's up to you and what you like.

Body of hat:

1. With MC e-wrap next peg, skip next peg around the loom. Attach CC color in first skipped peg and e-wrapped each skipped peg with the CC.

2. Continue e-wrapping same pegs with MC as in row 1. Then e-wrap same pegs with CC same as row 1.

3: Contiune e-wrapping for as long as you want the hat to be, putting the MC on MC pegs of row before, and CC on CC pegs of row before.

Note: We all have different sizes of heads. So don't think that you have to follow an exact row or inches to make it right. What is right is what will fit. Play a little to know what will fit your family best. If your hats are for charity, then it really doesn't matter as much as someone will be able to fit the hat. Babies come in different sizes.

4: Gather the top and finish off by hiding all ends.

Have fun. This pattern takes a bit longer due to the fact that this is wrapping one peg at a time for the cuffed brim, but makes a wonderful cuffed pattern. It also gives good practice in using this stitch so that you can get faster with it. Learning to do purls is a great way to add something to any loomed pattern. If you don't know how to do purls you can check out the video here:
http://decoraccentsinc.com Look for the link to the patterns and tutorials. Check out the other videos while you are there.

Ok, I have had my last day of grand jury duty. Well, sort of. They, the DA's office, plans to ask to not have our group disbanded. What we did yesterday could need a repeat visit in the next few weeks, but they will let us know. That's ok but it sure made for a very long day yesterday. We kind of got spoiled by usually being done in just a couple of hours. LOL At least we went out with a bang. I was so tired when I got home at almost 8pm. All I wanted was to go to bed and sleep. We had a lot of information thrown at us in such a short time. Makes the brain tired.

I and the others in our group learned a lot of stuff about the laws in our state, and how/why police do some things. I think that if everyone had to do a section of grand jury duty they would come away with some better idea of why things work the way they do. We often don't understand and this is a great way to learn. Even if we don't agree we still will know the why.

So this releases one afternoon back to myself. That's good news. Now my other good news is that my son, who has no car and doesn't drive anyway, will have a very different schedule next term at school. I will not have to be available on Friday's and his other days will be slightly longer so I have more time to myself between taking him to school and picking him up. Oh what will I ever do with all that extra time. I think I can guess at that.