The Greenland hat pattern is finished and available in my ravelry store.
This hat is inspired by the Eskimo Sweater created by Unn Søiland, a pioneer of Norwegian knitting. She is also recognized as the originator of several other iconic Norwegian sweaters. Learn more about Unn Søiland and her illustrious career here; and the company she founded here. For those of you who read Norwegian and/or enjoy lots of historic photos of Norwegian knitwear design, check out To Rette og en Vrang, a book about Unn Søiland's life and work.
The yarn is Jamieson's Shetland Spindrift, and this particular color combination has been calling out to me for some time, just waiting for the right project to come along.
It's interesting, I think, how swapping the placement of the colors changes the final look so dramatically. Which is good, because as this hat takes 5 colors to knit, there is plenty of yarn left over after knitting the first one to make at least one more hat, and probably two more, provided the knitter is willing to get creative with the color placement. My second hat, with alternate color placement, is shown on the right in the above photo. The pattern includes charts for both of the above hats. Beyond that, it's up to each knitter to create their own version!
The most challenging aspect of knitting this hat is managing the rounds where 3 colors are carried at once. For those rounds, I opted for the (frequently maligned) "pick up and drop" method. Some people suggest that this technique should not be used, claiming it is slow, sloppy, and creates tension problems.
I respectfully disagree. Done correctly, and with a bit of practice, pick up and drop is tidy, can make for very even tension, and can be done with impressive speed. I use pick up and drop when I have to do stranded color work across purl rows, or when more than 2 colors are used on a single row/round. When working with 3 colors, I place the main color skein to my right side, the contrast color skein in front of me, and the accent color (least used) skein to my left. Then I never move them! This will keep the inside of the knitting tidy, and prevent the yarns from tangling around each other. The caveat here is that once a skein is placed (to the right, to the front, or to the left), it needs to stay there for that entire section of the chart (until the specific motif is completed). If the skeins get moved around, say from the right side to the left side, that change will show on the outside of the knitting.
There are two other (small) challenges when knitting the Greenland hats. One is tension--on the 3-color rounds, it is easy (for me, anyway) to leave the floats insufficiently long, and thus create puckering in the fabric. I dealt with this by taking my time and making sure to stretch the knitting down the needle when changing colors. Another option is to go up one needle size on the 3-color rounds. Just remember to switch back to the smaller needle upon completion of the 3-color sections.
Finally, what to do with the colors that are not in use? Break them or carry them up the inside of the hat? I say that either option is good, and I did a combination of both. If a color would be used again within a couple rounds, I kept it attached. But if there were several rounds before it would be needed, I broke it re-joined it when the time came. That does mean that there are more ends to weave in, but I find the jog (the point where one round ends and another starts) looks better when I break the yarns. Weaving in those tails gives one an opportunity to smooth things out.
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