Stick a lure in it

I know, take a deep a breath, I'm posting 2 days in a row. Shocks the heck out of me too.

I mentioned a hat yesterday. Here it is. It reminds me of those hats fisherman wear with lures stuck in it.



Stat stuff:
Pattern: Tweedy Topper Knitters fall 2006
Yarn: 2 skeins Classic Elite Imagine
DMC perle' cotton size 5 150 yds of both baby blue and steel blue
2 strands of cobweb carry along mohair blend lt. blue and baby blue
(yep that's 5 strands held together)
Needles: #8
Gauge: I don't remember whatever it was in the pattern.

I followed the pattern faithfully. Yeah, I know, another shocker. I did omit the contrasting hat band but that has nothing to do with the construction of the hat anyway. I like the hat. I don't love it, but I like it so it's worthy of another try but the next one will be done differently. Go figure.

The next hat will not employ the use of the fiddly 'knit the purl bump x number of rows below with the next stitch' kind of thing. That's what makes the nice crisp turns and edges, but it's too fiddly to do, and doing it with mostly cotton makes this pattern a real finger screamer. Nope, next time I will faithfully follow the pattern unto that point where I'll smugly disregard the purl bumps x number of rows down and just keep on knitting. When I done I'll go back and either sew them or slip stitch (crochet) them to where they are suppose to be. Saves finger fatigue and time, boy, that fiddly stuff takes time! On the next go around I'll prob'ly work ssk's instead of k2tog. I think ssk's are easier than k2tog's when using an unyielding fiber like cotton, and who cares if they all lean left or right, there are very few of them that are paired. One other change will be the brim. It needs to be about .5 inch deeper and it doesn't need to doubled and it is in here. There is plenty of bulk and tightness in the gauge to keep it from being too floppy.

As a side note, if having something heavy on your head bothers you, do not work this pattern in cotton. It's really heavy, but to me that is part of its charm, to others it might be a PITA. Also note that I did not block the hat. I'm on the look out for a summer hat, I'm kinda over the whole baseball hat thing and I figured if it was going to be scrunched up in my bag all summer anyway why bother.