Reversible hat -- too small!

#1

My latest project has been a two-sided hat. I tried double knitting, but it was too difficult for my untrained fingers, and I went with the old siamese twin hat trick. Cast on with a provisional cast-on, knit one hat, then picked up the cast-on edge and knit another hat.

The first (blue) hat was too small, and the second (gray) hat was smaller, even though the yarn seemed to be the same size it came together tighter. When I put them together, it only really works well if the blue is on the outside, otherwise it bunches up inside the gray.

So what with the added thickness of the double layer, the finished hat is too small for almost any adult. Fortunately, I live in China and among my students there are some very petite people, one of whom will probably be receiving this hat. At least I have learned a few new tricks, and have now two very precise “gauge swatches” for these similar but different yarns.

#2

That’s too bad that the hat ended up too small! It looks great- I’ll have to try that method sometime.

Noticed that you are in China- are you there ‘teaching English?’ I’m in Korea. We have a huge yarn market here-- I was just there today.

#3

You mean Dongdaemun, right? I was working in Seoul last winter, which was when I got into knitting in the first place, and I made a post introducing that market to this forum.

I have just found a similar big market in Beijing and will be posting soon, as soon as I get the photos from my friend’s camera.

#4

Yes, that’s my favorite building in all of SEOUL. Honest! I’ve lived here a total of 8 years… (I’ve lived here three different times.) Yarn is more expensive there now- they are importing yarn from Japan now… the NORO stuff (different label name though)

It’s shopping unlike anyplace in the world. :smiley:

I had been gone one time for 4 years and several of the people in the yarn building- still remembered me!

It’s name used to be: Tongdaemun and they changed the T’s to D’s and the P’s to B’s about 3-4 years ago. Who knows why? :smiley:

Today, my friend wanted to drive instead of going there on the subway today- so, there we are and sure enough we were at one of the ‘city gates’… but, the wrong one! She had driven to Namdaemun instead of Damaedum! :smiley:
So, since she didn’t know where she was- we found parking and I led her through Namdaemun Market to the subway and we rode the subway anyway and then had to pay a $17.00 parking fee for about 3 hours of parking! Oh, the adventures of living overseas!

I used to live in Italy though and the yarn there is yummy!

#5

Dongdaemun was great not just for the yarn variety but also the supplies. They have great wooden needles and junk like stitch markers.

The market in Beijing, on the other hand, has a good variety of very cheap yarn, from various sorts of animals (!) but the needle situation is poor and the other equipment is behind the counter and “by request only” I guess.

They do have metal DPNs here, which were hard to find in Korea, but only in small sizes, and the wooden needles here are neither straight, nor clearly marked as to size. And you have to buy sandpaper for them. I’ve seen very few circular needles.

Of course, maybe I just haven’t hit the “mother lode” yet…

#6

That is strange about the lack of circular bamboo knitting needles there- I had always thought that the ones here ‘were from China?’ hummm

I never, ever have seen metal double pointed needles here- and they rarely have many wooden ones in different sizes anyway. SO, since I had an abundance of bamboo knitting needles- I took some apart and sharpened the end that had been on the plastic tubing-- and made my own short double pointed needles. They work great. I love the great quality of our bamboo knitting needles here- I’ve only found one that I had to use sandpaper on. These just get better and better w/ use. :smiley:

I’ve been making my own stitch markers lately. I just bought some jump rings and some of those beads and the cell phone dangly things that they sell here-- and instead made stitch markers out of them. Works great.

Could you get someone in the states to send you one of those needle size things? If so, tell them to get you one that shows the USA sizes and MM sizes for each hole. You just put the needles in it- like measuring out dry spaghetti in one of those things. Works great- because the sizes wear off anyway. It would be sold at Michaels, Jo-Anns, MC MOORE, Wal-Mart and would fit right in a regular letter envelope. Usually just made out of plastic.

In Italy, they rarely sold the circular knitting needles (which I use all the time) and the stick ones that they sold were SOOOO long. I finally found out why- they knit w/ one needle held under an armpit. Different, huh?

I had often wondered about the yarn in China- since, so many sweaters come out of there. I’m glad you found the yarn market. Is it bigger, smaller or similiar to the one here in Seoul?

#7

It’s probably a smaller market than the one in Seoul, keeping in mind that Seoul’s market also has equipment vendors and a lot of specialists in the fine threads that only machines can knit. The beijing vendors are generalists with some hand-knitting yarns, some really fine ones, and a little bit of equipment.

However, I am sure that there’s more to be discovered here… it is the textile capital of the world, after all.