Hedge Witch Balaclava

On Saturday I finally got around to resizing my bicycle helmet to fit over
my balaclava & thought that a pattern for a head-warmer would be appropriate
to the season -- in northerly climes.  It's been a long time (You could
still buy worsted at Woolworth's!), but I don't think that it took long to
make it.  I didn't have time to shop, so it disposed of all the scrap
worsted in my stash, save for a glaring lime green that lingers on yet.
There is a dotted line of red that goes only three-fourths of the way around
the hat, so I was using _every_ scrap in the hope of pushing the lime green
down inside my coat.  When Gwen Knighton  said "the
hedge-witch school of knitting [that means I make it up as I go along...],"
she came up with the perfect description for the design of the hat.

Since I hadn't yet heard of Emily Ocker, I began by single-crocheting a
small disk and picking up around it.  This created a button effect, without
the painful hazards of using a real button.  I worked round in Mary Thomas's
"Double Rose," increasing (at four stitches per round?) until there were
enough stitches to go round my head.  (By calculation, not by trying on; it
expands for several rounds after you quit increasing.)  Then I worked
straight; I don't appear to have made any increases or decreases except to
shape the hole and the bib.

Working Double Rose with two yarns, one in one round and the other in the
next, makes vertical stripes -- excellent for using up scraps: since the two
yarns never run out simultaneously, the horizontal stripes interlock.  You
need an even number of stitches to knit Double Rose with two yarns, and an
odd number for one yarn.

Double Rose gets warmer with wear; it's too porous and drafty until use and
washing have felted it a little.  Since this was to be worn under a thin
woven scarf and a helmet, fluffy was good.

An inch above the eyebrows, I started working a panel of garter stitch, and
made it one stitch wider at each end every ridge until it was two inches
wider than the desired opening for the face.  (This happened several rows
after I started working in rows.)  After four or five ridges, I bound off
the middle and decreased at the beginning of every row for what appears to
be about eight rows.  I presume that I used a circular needle to continue
alternating the yarns, working two rows on the back and then two on the
front.  I appear to have started moving the garter-stitch band back at once
after bringing the eye hole to full width, converting inner stitches to
Double Rose and compensating with increases at the edges. Every other ridge
spawned a vertical stripe at first, then the bottom four stripes begin at
one per ridge; I presume the increases were even faster in the last two
rows, as the corner of the hole is smoothly rounded.  

The cast-on at the bottom of the opening is about half as wide as the
cast-off at the top.  I presume this was enough to restore the original
number of stitches.  (Just after the cast-on, I was forced to start using
the lime yarn.  The dark-brown yarn striped with it did little to subdue the
glow, prompting DH to say "If you get into trouble, you can wave it."

After four more ridges of garter stitch, I worked short rows of Double Rose
to make a heel-like pouch for my chin.  Don't see any sign of decreases; I
must have counted entirely on the ribbing to draw it in for the neck.  I
think I would decrease instead, if I needed another one, because I'm always
pulling the opening down under my chin to keep the fabric away from my
mouth.  (Covering the mouth seemed like a good idea at the time, but grease
protects better:  it doesn't get wet from your breath.)

Immediately after knitting the chin, I knitted two and a half inches of k2p2
ribbing.  A regulation balaclava is finished at this point.  I went on to
knit an inch and a quarter of seed stitch.  (Because of the stripes, I
thought it was more garter stitch until I took a Really Close look.  Now
that I know how to knit back and forth in rounds, I think I'd use garter
stitch.)

Then I bound off half the stitches and worked back and forth, decreasing as
required to give a smooth oval shape to the bib, which measures four inches
from the ribbing.  This attached dicky is short enough to tuck in after
putting on my coat, and long enough to keep cold air from leaking between
collar and neck-warmer.

If you've never worked garter stitch in alternating colors, you should try
it; it looks like an entirely different stitch.  Three yarns can be
alternated without sliding stitches back and forth; just drop the yarn at
the end of the row and pick up the one you dropped there last trip.  (A good
way to use up scraps of yarn in a brain-not-engaged afghan.)

Joy Beeson

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