A Message in the Medium

Knitting letters is similar to stitching alphabets in traditional samplers and cross-stitch embroidery. The catch is that the "pixels" are rectangular, not square. Helvetica, a typographic classic, renders well in knits because it is bold and sans-serifs.

If, in the 70s, I could be a champion at rendering fonts in pencil, I figured i could transfer that skill to knitting.

Here's my latest creation, a warm solution for the hair-free, requested by my clever neighbor, Marc.

As Marc says, this cap stops people from wondering why he is wearing his
hat indoors. Plus, the fiber is super soft Berrocco Ultra Light Alpaca.

When I chart my pattern, my process is utterly low-tech, as shown below. Sometimes I have also been known to hold up graph paper and trace from my Mac or iPod computer screen after I have enlarged or reduced text.

The completed hat

Here's a hat for Marty, a Collegetown business owner., during
a time when he really needed it.

Oh, and Marc's wife, Christine, needed a new hat, too. I worked up the Norway hat for her from a free pattern on Ravelry and knit in one of Vermont's fine artisan wools.

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