The Twiggy Bobble Hat was born last September and, being a wily hat, it has heretofore eluded capture for tagging as a FO. In spite of its elusive qualities, it was recently caught on camera (in the exotic locale known as Beneath the Stairs) before scampering back under a shrubbery.

Exhibit A

the hat is startled by the photographer

The Specs:

-Pattern: Twiggy Bobble Hat by Andrea Tung, Pattern here.
-Yarn: Rowan Felted Tweed.
-Skeins: Less than one skein of Cocoa (143).
-Needles: Size 7 circs and dpns.
-Start to finish: Knitted sometime in September 2007.
-For: me!

The Pattern:
I could pretend that I vividly remember knitting this hat, but that would be silly. I only have the vaguest of recollections. I may as well have been abducted by aliens, brainwashed into thinking that I knit this hat, and returned to Earth.

Here's what I can dredge up from the bottom of my brain: There was some errata (ravelry link).

Exhibit B

it perches quietly on the head of the common knitter, with whom it shares a habitat

Notes:
I love this hat. I love that it's a bit oversized (for those of you who have never seen me around other people for scale, I am tall. I have a big head. Not freakishly large, just too big for many hats). I love the reverse stockinette. I reeeeeeeally love the bobbles, though occasionally they'll invert themselves and you have an inny instead of an outie. I consider this endearing.

Final Verdict: A fantastic hat. High thee hence and knit one for yourself.

Posted by Elli at 9:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (21)

Looky, it's a hat! A hat that's been finished since August (oh, the shame). Time to get caught up on the FOs...

Hello. I will stun you with my fuzzy rays.

The Specs:

-Pattern: Marloes Sand Hat, from Rowan 40.
-Yarn: 1.5 skeins of Lang Breeze.
-Needles: Size 13, and size 10.5 dpns (those were the largest ones I had).
-Start to finish: Two evenings way back in August, 2007.
-For: Me!

This is the best modeled shot I've got. Yes, I know it looks like I belong in the primate house.

Notes:
The yarn was a gift from my MIL last February. My first reaction was, of course, "YARN! Woo-hoo!" My second was "hmmmm...it's a bit on the, um, fuzzy side...and the colors aren't exactly what I would choose for myself." So into the stash it went to await its destiny.

Fast forward to a Sunday evening in August. I reallyreallyreally needed a fast project and I had my eye on the Sand Hat. Bulky yarn is severely underrepresented in my stash so when I dove in all I came up with was the Lang Breeze. A bit doubtful of the appropriateness of cables knit in novelty yarn, I decided to cast on and figured I could aways give the hat to Kricket* for Christmas if it came out looking completely dorky.

I knit the hat. I tried it on. I fell in love. It's soft and snuggly warm and best of all, it looks good on me. I have no idea why, but it works. So there you have it. I love my hat. The only question I have now is: does it need a bigger pom?

If I stand in a prickly tree can you imagine it's winter?

Final Verdict: Utter bewilderment and inexplicable fondness.

*my designated recipient of odd and/or experimental knits. Sorry, Krick.

Posted by Elli at 1:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (24)

A couple of weeks back I was waiting for that Rowanspun Aran to show up and I got a little antsy. So I decided to knit up a quick hat to take the edge off.

-Pattern: Cap Karma Hat, from Smariek Knits.
-Yarn: Handspun Bulky from Handpaintedyarn.com.
-Skeins: Less than one skein of "Sunset."
-Needles: Size 7 for ribbing; size 8 for the rest.
-Start to finish: July 18 – July 19, 2007.
-For: Me!

Notes:
This is a nice little hat pattern. I was drawn to it because the cables make the hat pucker in a zig-zaggy way and, as we know, all it takes is a nice zig-zag and I'm putty in your hands. Plus, cables! I had to make this one.

Yarn:
You may recognize the Handpainted Bulky from Thunky's Hidden Agenda Sweater. I kind of hated the yarn back when I knitted the sweater, because half of the skeins seemed to have been spun by someone whose instructions read "spin thick and thin singles" and the other half by someone whose instructions said "spin singles of a consistent thickness." Since I just needed one skein for this hat I figured I was in the clear.

Not so much, it turns out. The yarn itself was fine, but the dyejob was fabulously craptastic. After an hour or two of knitting I looked like I had severe jaundice of the fingers. Most of the dye washed off my hands with a good scrubbing, but it stained the edges of my fingernails (and nothing says sexy like nasty yellowy nails. Yuck).

On the plus side, the dye stopped bleeding after three good washes and the lovely sunsetty color doesn't seem to have faded. You have no idea how gross the wash water was though. It looked like radioactive lemonade.

Mods:
I made the whole thing shorter, so that it wouldn't swallow my head. I like my hats to just cover the tops of my ears.

Final Verdict: Yummy! A great pattern, but use different yarn.

Posted by Elli at 8:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (31)