justaphage

Last year, a friend of mine was making a DNA hat for another friend, and I liked it so much I had to have one. There was one small problem: I did not know how to knit. However, now thanks to the glory of the internet, I do!



Patterns are from ChemKnits

The one on the top left is the first thing I ever knitted (not counting the first attempt at ribbing which was a royal mess, modeled here by my dog). It's a little small because I have a tiny head and I didn't know what I was doing. Then of course my nerd family saw it over the holidays and they all wanted one! Unfortunately, both my father and BF have giant heads, so I had to learn to chill out and leave a bit less tension in my colorwork. I got there eventually though, and the two on the right have now been tested to fit on giant man-heads!

I was getting pretty quick at this point, so I made the headband in a week for my lab white elephant, knowing my fellow grad students would go wild for it. I still felt my ribbing on the previous hats was flaring a bit too much, so I tried a new cast-on method (Alternate Cable Cast-on) which was fun.



Alternate cable cast-on is on the left, basic cast-on on the right. I do like this new one but the ribbing did still flare a bit. anarfea has now tipped me off to try going down a needle size for the rib or knitting through the back of the stitch, so that's on the slate for the next ribbing I have to do!
It's probably time to try something new now. My goal is to learn how to do a basic cable, but I don't know what actual object to make. Guess I'm on the hunt for a pattern.

Edit: Sorry the images were tiny and then giant...I'm still working on my image embeds and I swear they were normal in the preview the second time!