Marge's Coronet

I still have a couple of May hats to catch up on-- this one was a commission from my petite, delightful coworker Marge. In addition to being an excellent nurse, Marge will stop at nothing to boost morale-- her impromptu soft-shoe routines are impeccable, and she is just as likely to sing a show tune or impersonate a basset hound.* So naturally, I was thrilled when she asked me to make a hat to match her lovely red cashmere scarf, which features a cable stitch I had never seen before. Working out the pattern was a challenge, but I was able to duplicate it for the brim of the hat:


I didn't get the color exactly right, which I regret-- but she likes it anyway:

Oh, Marge. Where would night shift be without you?

Project Notes

Yarn: Classic Elite Fresco, held doubled. The texture is soft and dreamy, with a furry halo-- it's not quite as luxurious as the cashmere scarf, but it comes fairly close. However, I'm not sure it's the best yarn for showing off cable stitches... I think it would be better suited to colorwork or lace. Live and learn.

Pattern: I was a bit panicked about inventing a cabled hat-- I can't yet get my head around decreasing cables. In the end, I decided it would be easier to use Coronet by Alexandra Virgiel as my model, substituting the cable stitch from Marge's scarf for the brim.

Techniques: Eunny Jang's tutorial on unventing cable stitches was extremely helpful.

The Bottom Line: Marge is angling for some way to pay me for making this for her-- we have settled, for the moment, on a bottle of wine-- but when you add up all the hours of entertainment she has provided over the years, I think I'm coming out ahead...

*She also excels at physical comedy-- we have a long history of failed attempts to chest-bump each other.