Knitmas '13; Tudor Cow Pat Hat

I know it's well into February and I'm still talking about Christmas but, hey, there were a lot of crafts around that time and I'm updating far slower than I intended to. One day I might start putting up regular posts (or, more likely, not, and they'll remain sporadic forever).

A Man in a Black Cap,
John Bette, 1545

Anyway, I knitted three things for people for Christmas. The second item I knitted was a cow pat hat. A what? Sounds awfully rude, doesn't it? It's no where near as messy as it sounds. A cow pat hat is a sort of flat, circular hat that was worn in the late Medieval through to Tudor periods of British history (although I suspect they, or a variant, were worn on the continent, too). The reason behind knitting this, was because I, and my family, are all re-enactors. My father and I began with the Tudor period, which then spilled out into Medieval, Dark Ages, Victorian and (due to the centenary), World War I, and eventually spilled out to my entire immediate family.

Let's rewind a little. I learnt knitting during the summer before last (2012), while I was at a Tudor living history event. I was working in an ale house at the time, but when there was no public I found I had very little to do and needed a way of keeping my hands busy. I had a friend there who would knit after hours and I questioned its authenticity; it seems that knitting was around way back when, but not like it is today. It was not a craft that was done by everybody, but instead only by those in the Cappers Guild. Only women married to men in said guild would have been taught the skill (as it was primarily a male orientated skill; oh, how times have changed!). Shapes were simple, no patterns, purling, cables, etc. and most were knitted on the round. Or so I have been told. There is a lot of debate about the history of knitting and how well a protected secret it was, so no body is really sure, but this is what I have been lead to believe. Anyway, it meant that I was allowed to knit at the event, providing the needles and wool were authentic. Fortunately, someone there sold authentic needles and the gift shop sold hand spun, hand dyed wool that had been made on site. I ended up with a set of four 2.25mm (UK 13) needles and a lovely deep green, 4ply wool. To those of you who know knitting, talk about throwing me in the deep end. Once you've learnt on the round, straight knitting seems ridiculously easy.

Six OC needles...

Okay, so that's where I began. I realised I enjoyed knitting far more than just wanting to do it at events, to which my mother bequeathed my Gran's needles unto me along with a load of spare wool she had (my mother is not a knitter) and, well, the rest is, if you'll excuse the pun, history. Summer 2013, I'm back at the Tudor living history event and my mum decides to treat me to some more authentic wool; a yellow-green colour, Aran/worsted weight. We spent some time discussing what could be made with it (as I really ought not to waste authentic wool on a non-authentic object) and eventually it was settled. I would make a hate for my dad for him to wear during the event.

Before stitching; looks like a
mushroom cloud...

This seemed like a great idea, until I noticed one teeny, tiny problem. Re-enacting and living history, while not unpopular hobbies are far from mainstream. I suddenly realised that I did not have a pattern. I asked around a few friends and they told me 'you increase to the right size, then decrease to the right size and then increase and decrease again'. That was it. That was pretty much all I had to go on.

Do you know how hard it is to even knit a flat, patternless circle when you have no idea what you're doing? It isn't easy. So I was stumped, didn't know what to do. Then, by a stroke of luck, when I was flicking through knitting books at the local book shop I found a book that was all about knitting circles. Brilliant. They had a pattern for a flat, patternless circle. It wasn't a hat pattern by any means, but it was a start.

Mostly done; just need the under brim

So I began with that; now is probably a good time to mention the sheer quantity of needles used in this project. Normally, patterns (at least, those that I have encountered) are four plus one needles; that is, the knitting is held on four needles and one extra is used for the knitting. This pattern called for six plus one. So I was using seven needles (actually, I was using eight, but that's because I'm a little OC, and had four red needles and four teal ones as I'd had to buy two sets. So I'd keep swapping the seventh one so the needles were always alternate colours). It certainly looked impressive, although the number of needles were no more complex than a lesser number (the fact it was a flat item rather than a tube was what I found to be particularly difficult). I started with three plus one initially, to make sure the centre was tight and without a visible hole, then gradually increased as I worked in more stitches.

The centre looks really small, but it does fit.

The finished circle was not as large as I needed it to be, but after some thirty odd rows I'd worked out the pattern to get it to the right size. Well, then I realised I had a problem with 'the right size'. How do you measure the diameter of a circle that is currently hexagonal? I realised I was going to have to take it off the DPNs and onto some string/wire, so that it could form it's natural shape and be measured. A simple, but time consuming task that I would have to repeat twice over in the course of the knitting. Once it was back on the DPNs, it was time to decrease and I was on my own from here on. Measuring the size after decreasing proved to be more difficult, given knitting's tendency to curl; even on string I could not get it to stay flat for an accurate measurement, so guesses had to be made (as numerous  repeats of the measuring).

Top down; a perfect, patternless circle.

I'm really surprised that it turned out as well as it did, given that I didn't really know what I was doing. But it worked. Well, turns out I didn't quite have enough wool, so the under portion of the brim was about ten rows off. When I stitched the two parts of the brim together though, it pulled it all not place.

The only changes I would make if I were to make another, would be to make the top of the hat a slightly lesser diameter than the brim; this hat, they are the same size. I just think it would look a little better. Dad seemed really very pleased with the finished hat, which made me rather proud of my efforts. We have yet to do another Tudor re-enactment though, so he has not yet had chance to wear it with the rest of his Tudor period clothes. Should look good though.

I think he approves.

As always, the figures. 39 rows (with every other row being increased by eight) for the top of the hat, with 160 stitches; 21 for the first decrease, with 72 stitches; 19 rows for the brim, back to 160 stitches; finally, what should have been 21 decrease rows for the reverse of the brim was about 15, finished with 97 stitches. The flat circle pattern came from Nicky Epstein's Knitting in Circles. I used 6mm needles. The top was knitted to 30cm diameter, the circumference 58cm, or 18cm diameter.