Kufi

Sean, my boyfriend's coworker has been asking me for a knit kufi with a pentagram on top for I think almost a year now. Since Kufis are traditionally a middle-eastern style hat, there aren't many patterns for them, and on top of that, I found absolutely none with a pentagram. It took me a few months to work out a plan for the pattern. Initially I was just going to use a plain skullcap pattern, and then embroider a pentagram pattern on top. Then I found this pentagram online, with the geometric angles on it.
I printed it out and snipped into the circle, bent it, and taped it into a 3D figure. Then I wrote on it where I thought the increases and decreases should go. I knit it top down and used six size 5 needles so that I had one needle for each of the 5 parts of the pentagram and one to work with. It was a little difficult to keep track of increases and decreases for each round. I wish I had written out the pattern while I was knitting it... I guess I'll have to knit another one in order to write the pattern.

Once I had the pentagram worked into a circle, I decreased five stiches, one at each point where the pentagon meets the circle edge, and then continued in 2x2 rib for the edge. I think it came out very good considering...

Knitting on the Road

So after arriving in Jackson, WY, where it was 2°C, Sarah decided she needed a hat to keep her head warm. We poked around in a few stores without luck, then we ran into this place: Knit on Pearl (It's on Pearl St.) What a clever little name...

It took me til I think Kansas City (maybe?) to finish it, but her hat came out really beautiful, and the yarn was so nice to knit with, the hand was so so soft. Sarah picked out a beautiful yarn for her hat: Plymouth's Baby Alpaca Grande in a pretty soft rose color. It came with a free pattern for a cable hat with earflaps. Although I finished the hat, Sarah wanted braids coming down off the earflaps, but I was JUST short on the yarn (probably my own fault, I snipped a few strands a bit short.)


We ended up stopping at another little yarn shop in Columbia, Missouri: Hillcreek Yarn Shoppe. The ladies here were INCREDIBLY helpful. They didn't carry the same Baby Alpaca Grande color, but they called all the stores in the area for me, (Unfortunately nobody had that color) and then helped Sarah and I pick out a new hat project for the rest of the trip. Here's me knitting the hat in our hotel. It was a much bigger yarn: Brown Sheep Company's Burley Spun in Mountain Majesty: a variegated yarn in navy and sky blues, black, purple, and magenta.

The hat I made from this yarn also has
earflaps and braids.
Here's me knitting it in our hotel, and the project up close: