Friday, March 25, 2011

Giant Snowflakes!!

Since I am the queen of overly ambitious agendas and non-binding resolutions, I've made an entirely unenforceable pact with myself to post on all hats that are (currently) at least 90% finished by next Friday. By my calculations, that's four hats... yipes! Time to dust off the old speed-blogging manual...

Yesterday, I delivered hat 12 to its new owner-- my lovely coworker Jess, whom I haven't seen much since she busted her leg skiing. She's not been relishing the activity restrictions, though it does force her to sit still for the camera:

I think she likes the hat... my creepy papparazzi-ing, not so much.

Project Notes

Yarn: Canopy Worsted-- and a bit of Canopy Fingering for the lining. This stuff is softness itself, and too lovely to languish in my stash for as long as it did. Though I suppose the point of a stash is the ability to knit awesome things at a moment's notice. You see, I'm learning! I'm planning to knit my next batch of hats entirely from stash yarn-- contrary to popular belief, I do have some.

Pattern: Improvised! Jess is a hardcore winter adventurer, thus the snowflake motif, which I borrowed from TPHPE (The Prettiest Hot Pad Ever!) by Heather Zoppetti. It's a large motif, so the design is basically just three repeats of the chart. I did a hemmed edge because nothing else would fit! Though I do love a hemmed edge, and that extra layer of warmth is just the thing for cold, windy rides on the chairlift.

Techniques: I had a spot of bother figuring out how to close the top of the hat-- the motif is so tall that I needed to decrease very quickly to prevent the hat from being too long, or worse, poofy on the top. This excellent calculator helped immensely-- the top of the hat is nice and flat, even though I ignored some of the directions... And since I had to unravel and start over twice, I learned how to properly de-kink yarn for re-knitting*-- TECHknitter, as usual, showed me the way.

The Bottom Line: I'm quite pleased with how this one turned out-- it was worth the false starts to get it right in the end. I was also glad to do my part in the "Cheer Up Jess" effort-- she'll be back to imperiling herself in no time.

Stay tuned for more thrilling hat posts than you can shake a stick at-- and while you're at it, check out some other lovely stuff at FO Friday!

*How's THAT for looking on the bright side?

10 comments:

  1. The hat is epic! I love it so much. I can't wait to see all of your hats next week!

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  2. The hat is gorgeous! I love the pattern. I sure hope it cheered your friend up.

    Happy Fiber Arts Friday!

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  3. I'm super impressed with how you translated the snowflake motif into a hat design. It came our beautifully. And I appreciate the link to the calculator!

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  4. The hat looks great, I am impressed with your colourwork skills and patttern improvising ability

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  5. That hat is amazing!! The colour is lovely....it actually makes me think of going skiing!!

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  6. That hat looks so warm and comfy. I love the snowflake. Nice work!

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  7. Just a quick note to let you know I've nominated you for an award. I've blogged about it here: http://craftycripple.blogspot.com/2011/03/i-got-award.html

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  8. I was just led to you by craftycripple, and I am so glad she nominated you. I love the 52 hats idea. I look forward to following your continuing progress, and I may have to try this myself next year. What a great idea!

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  9. I love how you improvised on this. The snowflake motif turned out beautifully.

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