Amy’s Thread: Bubble Star!

Around the time that the Artisan yarn samples were arriving in the Berroco offices, Misa Erder’s pattern Bubble Star came out on Ravelry, and I knew I’d found a perfect match of yarn and pattern. Bubble Star is a perfect first colorwork project for an adventurous beginning knitter. The easy to read chart is only 14 rounds of knitting with 2 colors, the rest of the hat is simple stockinette stitch.

For my hat, I used Berroco Artisan in shade #6007 ‘Gulf of Maine’ as the main color and shade #6039 ‘Maritime’ as the contrast color. I had to go down 1 needle size to get gauge, though this is typical for me since as I am a pretty loose knitter. For the garter stitch brim, I dropped down 2 needle sizes. I knit the stockinette section in a single evening, sitting around a campfire with my family.

The secret to working stranded colorwork is to have a gentle tension.

You can see in the photo above that the floats of the non-working yarn on the wrong side are quite loose. It is easy to go back and ‘snug-up’ your stitches if it looks too loose later. 

For the crown shaping, you are instructed to use double pointed needles when the stitches can no longer slide comfortably around the 16″ circular. I prefer the method of using 2 circular needles – mostly because I can never find 4 of the right size DPNs, but I also find it easier to keep track of my rounds this way. You can see here – the needles just have to be the same size (I knit my hat on a US 6/4.0mm) but they don’t need to be the same length or brand.

I made my pom-pom using Emily’s Fork technique, super quick and easy!

I leave the tails that tie the pom pretty long and use them to attach the pom-pom to the hat. I anchored the pom-pom on the wrong side with a 2 hole button – A trick I learned from Mary Jane Muckelstone’s Fishbones hat.

Misa is an incredibly talented knitter and designer whose projects have been inspiring me for many years, this is the first time I have knit one of her patterns but it won’t be the last!