Headway on Hats

I actually finished this on Friday, but I didn't get around to taking a picture till today. After much trial and error, I found that the best way to take the photo was to put the hat over a medium-sized round kitchen canister.

The pattern is called "abc hat- Alison's Beginner's Cap".  It was very easy to make, even for me.

I did have a bit of frustration at the end. I had completely finished it, including clipping the yarn end short, and was admiring my work, when I found that while weaving the yarn end into the last row of stitches, I had missed one stitch. It hadn't started to ravel yet, but it soon would. I started trying to unpick the woven-in yarn end to get back to that stitch and pick it up. Well, you can imagine how well that went. The yarn just got increasingly fuzzy, and the little fuzzies actually started forming knots, and I ended up with even more stitches coming unraveled. I ended up frogging back to before the first decrease row, cutting the now unusably frayed yarn off, and and knitting the whole crown over. And you can bet I was extra careful finishing it off the second time!

I've also made a good start on the second hat.

I've been having a really hard time photographing this yarn accurately. I ended up using the foliage setting on my camera, and then played around with the colors on the computer, but I still don't have the green exactly right. It's not quite this bright in real life.

This one is called "Bamboozled", so named because it is done in bamboo stitch. I chose this pattern mainly because I wanted to branch out from just knit and purl, but I also think it's a good match for the yarn (I chose the pattern before the yarn). Since the yarn is just a cotton-polyester in a light worsted weight, it's not particularly warm, but I think the sort of waffle texture of this pattern will give it more insulating power. And the texture also adds interest to the solid color. Of course, it does also take a little bit longer, but it still should be done in plenty of time.