Adventures In Behm Couture

As an Amazon associate, I may earn a small commission if you navigate to Amazon from my site and buy something. This will not result in an extra cost to you.

I really do think that knitwear designers must be secret geniuses. Take the sock, for example: a hand knit sock is a tube that makes a 90° turn at the heel and then continues on being a tube until you get to the toe, where you close it up. Or, if you were a Philistine and started from the toe, you would end at the top of the sock. It’s quite simple when I explain it like this, but there is serious engineering in that 90° turn. We knitters (gosh, I love saying that…I’m a knitter!) call that “turning the heel.” And the turn is accomplished in such a way that the sock snugly cradles the heel, while leaving extra room for the instep of the foot. Who on earth figured that out? It’s totally genius! And don’t even get me started on how many different ways there are to turn a heel…just when I think I’ve seen them all, someone gets all clever and invents new ways (I’m looking at you, Cat Bordhi).

*The knitwear genius modeling her magic hat.*

Okay, I feel like I’ve gotten a little off track in my rapture over hand knit socks, so back to what I was saying. Knitwear designers are geniuses. And one of my favorite designer-geniuses is a German lady named Martina Behm. She’s designed a bit of everything, but she specializes in hats and small shawls….henceforth called shawlettes. I have made a number of her shawlettes but only one of her hats. And that’s because that hat pattern is so ingenious that I just kept making it again and again. Like a crack addict. I couldn’t quit. You can use any yarn you want and it can be made to fit any size head. Now, her patterns are not free; she makes her living by selling the patterns (and they are worth every penny) so while I will be talking about them generally, I will not be too specific, because I don’t want to give away the secret sauce.

For my mother’s birthday, I made her a matching set of the brilliant hat (the pattern name is Tensfield, and you can buy it off Ravelry) and a shawlette which I have made several times ( the pattern name is Leftie and you can get that one on Ravelry too).

First I’ll show you the finished products (and illustrate the difference between a picture taken with sun and a picture taken without), and then we’ll discuss a few of the finer points. Also, I don’t want to brag or anything (I totally want to brag) but I used stash yarn for all of this. No new yarn came into the house. I feel so virtuous I can hardly stand myself. If anyone wants to know the specific yarn choices, I ended up using two skeins of Knit Picks’ Stroll yarn in Black and one skein of Knit Picks’ Hawthorne Kettle Dye yarn in Serpent.

Let’s talk about the hat first. You knit it back and forth for awhile, increasing along the edges, until it fits around the head of the person who will be wearing it. Because the edge of the brim is made with increases rather than a cast on edge, it’s nice and stretchy. After that, you join it and start knitting in the round. But…not really. You end up doing short rows for the rest of the hat, and it’s just so darn easy and clever. I chose to use two colors once I was in the short row section because 1) I had the yarn to use up, and 2) I think it looks a lot more striking that way. Then when you’re done, you close up the top with a three-needle bindoff. I personally hate actually using three needles, so I use two needles and a crochet hook (I’ll get into that crochet hook a little later). If you want the chain-ridge on the outside of the hat (like I did) then you bind off right side out (picture on the left). But if you want it hidden inside, just turn the hat inside out before you bind off, and you end up with what looks like a couple purl rows next to each other (picture on the right). Knitter’s choice.

Then, the shawlette. This pattern actually calls for (at least) two colors: the main/base color (I used black) and then a contrasting color that you will be using for the two-row stripes/leaves (I used green). Without saying too much about the pattern, I would note that in the short-row leaves section, the directions tell you to pick up your wraps in a particular way. But I almost never pick up my wraps in garter stitch, and it’s definitely not necessary here. So if the pattern tells you (as a not-random example) to knit three, pick up wrap, then wrap and turn, I suggest instead that you just knit four, then wrap and turn. As you progress through the pattern, you’ll find that you will not cut the main color until you are finished with the shawl. But you will cut the contrasting color at the end of every stripe. This does leave you with a lot of ends to weave in. But it’s not hard, and you just need to be patient. Put on a movie and go for it.

When you bind off the shawl, I recommend that you use a crochet hook of the same size as the needles you used to knit it. Here’s the thing: if you struggle with keeping a bindoff even and tidy looking (like I do), you’ll know that if you use the same size needles you knit with, in addition to the bindoff being a bit uneven, it will also be tight because you’re pulling on the yarn as you lift one stitch over another. This draws your (frequently uneven) edge in, instead of letting it lay flat. And if you decide to use needles 1-2 sizes bigger than you were knitting with, then your edge will likely still be uneven, but might be too loose and look floppy and ruffled, instead of laying flat. Plus, a traditional bindoff is just so tedious to execute. MUCH easier to do it with a crochet hook. And since you are just drawing yarn through two stitches, there’s no struggle to pull one stitch over another without messing up your tension. So you get a beautifully even castoff edge that lies perfectly flat. And it doesn’t hurt any that it goes much faster than a traditional bindoff. So even if you are a knitter who believes that crochet is against your religion, getting comfortable with crochet hooks for this particular application will serve you well. For a look at this technique in motion, see the YouTube video at the end of this article.

And finally, my mother always struggles with “how to wear the shawlette.” So I’ve put together a few pictures of my method for making the shawlette lie beautifully (and warmly) around your neck and display all those gorgeous leaves along your collarbone.