The Latah Trail Beanie

I created this one-of-a-kind beanie for the Latah Trail Foundation 2014 Trail Mixer Dinner and Auction, Saturday, May 3, 2014.  Definitely a labor of love which I hope will raise oodles of money to help pave 4 miles of multi-use trail in Bear Creek Canyon (near Troy, Idaho).

May 3, 2014 update:  The Latah Trail Beanie sold for $300 during the live auction!  Hurray for bidding wars and generous community support!

Design and Construction:  Jen Hiebert

Time: 100+ hours, February to April 2014

Number of Stitches: 27,000

Size: adult medium

Yarn: Cascade Yarns Heritage Sock Yarn (fingering weight, 4-ply, 75% superwash merino wool/25% nylon) in the Latah Trail logo colors.  Purchased from The Yarn Underground in Moscow, Idaho.

Techniques: stranded and double knitting using 2mm circular and double pointed needles, 2 to 5 colors per row

Motifs: trail bridges, trail users, evergreens, trilliums, birds

I used double knitting to make the Latah Trail Beanie reversible.  Although this technique, when combined with stranded knitting, more than doubles construction time, it makes for an extra gorgeous end-product, makes tension control easier (most of the floats are carried along as part of the inner lining) and makes it easy to hide all the tail ends (see below!)

This is what the beanie looked like before all the ends were tucked in.  Spaghetti, anyone?

I used the Latah Trail logo as the inspiration for my design.  I created the design in Excel and made mock-ups out of paper copies of the design to get a feel for the finished product.

I included the bridge in the logo as one of the motifs, along with graphic elements representing trail users, trilliums, birds and the countryside along the trail.

This photo shows the brim being folded and joined so that I could continue the rest of the beanie using double knitting.

I created the design using Excel.  I added colored dots to represent the pattern I wanted to knit on the inside of the beanie.  This photo is also a good example of what double knitting looks like where the outside pattern is different (not just an exact reverse) from the inside.

Although sometimes the inside was the exact reverse of the outside.  Whatever works!

The “last spike”.  The air was a little blue during this phase of construction.  Trying to double knit around an increasingly smaller hole is NOT for the faint of heart!

To whoever wins this beanie in the auction, I hope you enjoy wearing it as much as I did making it.  And thank you for supporting the Latah Trail Foundation!