Hat Finished-- With Tatting!

There's nothing classier than taking a picture of yourself in the mirror and posting it online, right? It was the best way I could come up with to show off the hat, though; putting it over a kitchen canister just wasn't going to work.

The pattern is the Barrymore Slouch Hat by Lisa Shroyer. The yarn is Mirasol Sulka in colors 211 Black Pepper and 242 Blackberry, and it feels fabulous!

One thing I really like about the pattern is it has hidden internal ear flaps. These are a bit challenging for a beginner to make, but who hasn't wished for an extra layer over the ears on a windy day? I did deviate from the pattern this time around by not making the button band, but that was only because I didn't have enough of the black yarn left.

And of course, instead of a decorative button, I made a tatted flower.

It looks a little bit messy here because I didn't trim the stamens till after I had it sewn onto the hat. The pattern is Jane Eborall's Lotus on a Button. This was a fun pattern to make, but I'd say definitely for experienced tatters. The tatting itself is easy, just rings and chains, but the way it joins to the button is kind of tricky.

I made the flower using a silk thread from the local yarn store. This thread is intended for needlepoint, and is in fact not that nice for tatting. It's more like a raw silk, not the nice shiny smooth stuff; it's a very loosely twisted, slightly fuzzy 2-ply, similar to a perle cotton. But of course I could see all that before I bought it, and actually I wanted that slightly looser, coarser look for this particular piece, to go better with the yarn. The brand is called Vineyard Silk; the colors are C-101 Chalk Violet (inner petals), C-001 Petal (outer petals), T-811 Landscape (leaves), and S-535 Tinsel (stamens).

The button I used was a purply-gray mother-of-pearl button that happens to go nicely with the colors of the hat and the flower; I used it because it was what I had in my stash that was the right size and shape for the pattern, but really a plastic button would have done just as well since you can't see it by the time all the tatting is attached.

Because the thread is so coarse, ordinary seed beads as per the pattern didn't work. Instead, I used 3mm beads pre-strung on the thread and 2mm beads on the joining picots. Since I had to use larger beads, I also used fewer of them than the pattern called for.

Here it is up close on the hat. I love the way it turned out!

Much to Squijum's delight, I recently invested in a swift and ball winder. I haven't had a chance to try the ball winder yet, but I used the swift to wind the skeins of silk thread onto floss bobbins. It is way easier than looping the thread over the back of a chair, once you get the cat out of the room! Yes, I do have the audacity to think this is a tool for me instead of a toy for His Lordship. I don't know where such thoughts come from.

And I don't need to hear about the dust on my bookshelves, or my unmade bed, thank you.

Besides, this is what His Lordship does when I try to make the bed.