Hat #1

I had plenty of Shetland Spindrift in my stash in colors very similar to the ones pictured in Feitleson’s first hat. Mossy greens and heathery purples are one of my favorite color combinations.

I used a size 2 needle and tried a knitted on cast on.  Seems with corrugated ribbing that many folks have issues with rolling edges when they use the long tail cast on. Searching a few pages on Ravelry a number of people swear by the knitted cast on so I gave it a whirl.  Have to say I did like the look of it better  and it did seem to control the rolling a bit- but I usually find that a slight roll will behave after washing and blocking.

To look at yarn dominance (the term used to describe which color pops forward in the design based on how the colors are held)  I did the first big pattern with purple held on the left as the pattern color and the second big pattern with green on the left.  When I look at the design I see the purple as the pattern . While I like the look of the first band I think the second is more successful . the purple naturally recedes and is more defined when the greens were held as the pattern color. Granted this is really personal preference stuff- but it is interesting to observe why you like what you like. 

Checking the project pages for this hat on Ravelry many people commented that the hat was just too tall. I decided to eliminate a few rows of the pattern , doing 44 rows rather than 48 rows of the body patterns. 

For the crown I used the basic knit 3 together decrease in the pattern color which gave me nice dashes of color.

I liked the beanie shape of the hat and actually think the length would have been ok even with 4 extra rows. I think we are more used to seeing a slouchy style hat now than when the book was originally published. I decided to play a little with blocking the hat out using a dinner plate. It did take on a nice tam shape.  My 10 inch plate reached row 23 of the pattern. (useful to know if you ever want to add your own patterns to the basic hat recipe)

Love the way this hay turned out! Jumped right in on another…