Herringbone Cloche Woes

Thanks to those who voted in my Scarf Poll. I'm going to wait a few more days in the hopes that some more people will come out of hiding and participate. Currently "Rip It" is leading by only a few votes.

OK, I promised to give an update as to what was going on with the Herringbone Cloche from Vogue Knitting Hats & Caps Two. To review, this is the pattern that has you knit 3 triangles and seam them together to make the crown of the hat. Then you pick up stitches around the bottom of the crown to knit the brim flat, which you then seam. The stitch pattern used in this hat is herringbone stitch. It can be found in Barbara Walker's first Treasury of Knitting Patterns, where it is called Little Herringbone. It is also the stitch pattern used for the popular My So Called Scarf available at Sheep in the City.

I love this stitch pattern, but after two unsuccessful attempts to make an appropriate-sized triangle, I have given up on the hat-construction method given in the Vogue hat book. I see no way that three triangles of the size given could ever fit a normal human head. Also, I have only found two instances online of someone actually having made this thing, and they both apparently ended in the creation of an ill-fitting hat.

Therefore, I have given up on the book's instructions and and have decided to knit the crown in the round, and then pick up the brim stitches and knit that in the round also. So I searched all over the internet, but I was unable to find directions for how to work herringbone stitch in the round. Not one to be daunted by a challenge, I experimented a bit and I think I have figured it out.

I was going to post my instructions here but I am having a hard time explaining them right now. Maybe I will post them later if this hat works out.

I knit this swatch on big needles to test my new herringbone stitch in the round method. The blue yarn shows what would normally be the wrong-side rows. The bottom-most blue row was knit from the right side with my new 'in-the-round' method. The next two blue rows were knit from the wrong side with the original purl-based method. I think they look the same. What do you think?

Well, I have started knitting the crown of the hat with this new method. It is very slow going though, so my progress has not been stellar. I've tried it on and it does fit my head so far. But keep your fingers crossed. I think it will will get tricky when I need to start decreasing.

I bet Sister#2 is now regretting that she picked this particular hat pattern. I think I'm regretting having shown it to her...

Oh hey, I came across this Authors on Tour site where you can listen online (or download) podcasts of certain authors speaking about their latest books. I really enjoyed listening to Al Franken and Audrey Niffenegger (I loved her book, The Time Traveler’s Wife). They also have some interesting authors coming up. I'm looking forward to listening to Lemony Snickett. Check it out.