The Hat That Wouldn't Die

This was supposed to be an easy project.

A simple pattern, a ball of mill ends, a way to indulge my slouchy beret obsession, something to keep the chill off my head. Start at one end of the ball, work until I ran out of yarn, two ends to weave in. It was supposed to be finished while there was still a chill in the air.

Of course, it didn't work out that way.

It went pretty quickly...the first time around. 65% of the way done, I decided I didn't like how the ball of mill ends was arranging itself into super-thick stripes. I also noticed that because I started at the end with dark brown/black, and the increase lines were pretty visible, and the whole area was surrounded by a lighter brown, the hat looked like...well, frankly, it looked like a butt. I'm not talking about a two round, peachy cheeks butt. It looked like the other part of a butt.


Congratulations, I said to myself. You have knitted a butthole hat. This is sure to be the pinnacle of your crafting career: a knitted butthole.

I can't wait to see what sort of Google hits I get off that.

Anyway, I sighed and ripped it out. All the way out. Then I started from the other end of my ball, got 70% done, decided I hated the first color in the line-up, and frogged it again. Then I got 75% done with the next incarnation and ripped it back to 40%, because I had to break up the large blocks of color that were forming.

What you see here is the fourth version; I finally gave up and hacked into the ball in several spots to get the striping/color block effect I wanted. So much for only having two ends to weave in.

I made the ribbing part extra-long because I the ball of yarn just kept going and and going and it made me think it might be both cute and structurally helpful to make the ribbing long enough to fold backwards. It works pretty well. It's a little too big, and I might have to shore up the front with some elastic cord or else use 36 hairpins to keep it from sliding off. Or I could just un-flip the ribbing part and pull it over my forehead, which makes me look like a dork but means I don't have to fiddle with it every 30 seconds. Side note: do you have any idea how hard it is to take a picture of the side/back of one's own head? These were taken with my phone camera while my daughter wrapped herself around my legs and howled because we were out of strawberries. I'm lucky I managed to get any photos of the thing at all.

Ravelry details here.

Overall, this is a nice pattern (I used to to make a little hat for one of Piper's dolls* quite successfully) but I think this project was just cursed. It was my first experience working with mill ends, and I will do it again. The lure of so much nice yarn for such a cheap price is irresistible. I really dug this marled yarn, whatever the heck it is (I think it was in with the Lorna's Laces stuff in the shop, but I can't remember for sure). There's a scarf pattern in the Winter/Spring 2010 KnitScene written for marled/ragg yarns that would look cool in this sort of many-colored mixture; it might also make a smashing Milo (I know, I have a problem). I am keen to try other brands and types, because it was such an adventure and it's an inexpensive way to test a yarn. Next time, however, I will have to actually remember what I'm buying, instead of just going "Oooh, pretty!" and stuffing it into my shopping basket.

*Hey, did you know that a hat sized to fit a medium-ish doll will also fit nicely on the head of your average-size housecat?