Big Wool Hat

I made a hat today. Actually, I made a hat today, twice. I usually wind up making hats twice.



I love it. But of course, there's a back story. I made this hat before (so I guess that means I've made this hat 3 times). It was the very first hat I ever made, way back when I learned to knit in around 2002. It was made out of a coral-orangey color Rowan Big Wool and I was so excited. So very very very excited. I wore this hat for three winters, loving its warmth and plush-ness and everything about it. But, it was a llittle big. And this was before I knew that you could fudge patterns to make them how you want them.

But here's the bad news. I lost the hat. Last winter, while I was taking the M21 from my office to Make workshop for a sewing class, it must have fallen out of my pocket on the bus. I had been carrying a ton of stuff - my regular handbag, a bag with my sewing class stuff, a bag of stuff to stay at Mike's for the night (this was before move-in #2) and a roll of patternmaking paper. After walking from my office to the bus stop, I was so hot that I took the hat off and jammed it into my coat pocket. I arrived at Make only to realize that my hat was no longer in the pocket. It was a sad, sad day.

But that brings us to today. I didn't lose any time hatless last winter and I was determined not to do so this winter. Sure, I have other hats, but I loved this pattern and loved that hat.



Its "Madge" from Rowan's Bigger Picture. The color is shade 25, a very eggplant looking purple. Of course, it will match the scarf that I just can't seem to finish. I did some mods - The pattern calls for a garter stitch border before going into the seed stitch for the crown, but I wanted all seed stitch, all the time. I took out two rows to account for the slightly smaller size I was looking for from the last hat, and I made the hat. This is what I came out with:



It was big. So big that it covered my eyebrows. So big that it was dragging at my neck. And what did I do? Instead of being sensible and just ripping back to before the shaping and removing a few rows, I ripped back the whole darned thing. And started totally over. I think I have a fear of picking up stitches. And then I removed three more rows, for about an inch lost in length from the first run, and probably about an inch and a half from the pattern itself. And I think its perfect.

Mike thinks so too. He said, "It looks like a raspberry. I kind of want to eat it". Success!