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Gerda Hat & Mitts Set

$6.50 or 3 pages of your story

Available as part of the Accessories Collection for $18

Difficulty: Engaging (click for info)


Gerda is a matching hat-and-mitt set, executed in warming colorwork and dedicated to the loyal Hans Christian Andersen heroine who succeeds in saving her best friend from a lifetime of frozen, heartless cynicism in the palace of The Snow Queen. (Fittingly enough, the name of the Gerda set was suggested by a friend of mine: Homero Luna of Splendor Knitting fame.) I find matching accessories to be enormously satisfying; while a standalone hat or mitten pattern can be lovely, a matching set achieves a synergy that's greater than the sum of its parts - just like a great friendship.

The Gerda Set features a wealth of loving details, from the rounded edges of the tubular cast-on and bind-off, to the rich texture of the two-color corrugated ribbing, to the mosaic-stitch diamond motif that makes up the body of the three pieces. This same diamond motif provides the framework for both the thumb gussets on the mitts and the crown decreases on the hat, giving the entire set an internal logic all its own.

Gerda is worked in mosaic-stitch colorwork, an interesting alternative to stranded: rather than carrying both colors along and knitting with alternating strands, the knitter carries only one color per round, and slips stitches of the non-working color from the previous rounds in order to form the pattern. All of Gerda's colorwork is charted, and all integrated shaping explained, in the pattern instructions.

My apologies, but the Gerda pattern will only be available as a set, not as individual hat and mitt patterns. It would be a shame to split up such a well-matched pair, don't you think?

This pattern is available individually and as part of the Accessories Collection.

Pattern Information

Sizing:

  • Hat: 21.5 inches circumference; 7.5 inches from brim to crown
  • Mitts: 7.75 inches around the knuckles; 9 inches from bottom to top cuff
    (Sizing modifications can be made by adjusting gauge up or down.)

Gauge:

  • 37 sts/40 rows = 4 inches in charted mosaic pattern

Materials:

  • MC: 1 skein Sundara Yarn Sock Yarn (100% superwash merino; 100g/350yd); colorway Black Tulip
  • CC: 1 skein Indigo Moon Merino Superwash (100% superwash merino; 100g/370yd); colorway Apricot
  • 1 set of 5 US #1/2.25mm double-point needles
  • 1 set of 5 US#0 or 1/2mm or 2.25mm double-point needles (for grafting)
  • Tapestry needle

Necessary Techniques:

  • Working in the round
  • Reading color charts
  • Mosaic-work color knitting (in which a single color is worked for two rows, slipping unworked stitches from the rows below)
  • Working m1L, m1R, k2tog, ssk, and slipped stitches
  • Tubular cast-on and bind-off (pattern instructions include links to tutorials)
  • Corrugated ribbing (instructions included in pattern)


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