The Cat 'n the Hat

I seem to have joined another knit-along - Cover Your Head



As you may guess, this KAL involves hats. As you may also guess, since I'm working on my stranding, I knit a stranded hat -- the Fake Isle hat from MagKnits.

Now, before I say anything else, I should indicate that there have been some wonderful examples of this hat posted about blog-ville. For example, look here and here, to point out just a couple of them. I warn you now that what follows is not what I would consider a wonderful example of what is really a wonderful pattern.

Before I show you my monstrosity, let me state here and now that I really don't like 16" circular needles. Yes, the stranding goes much smoother without the joins you get from DPNs, but I find knitting with that short a circ to be hard on the hands. However, since my head is nowhere near 24", I guess it's a "suck it up" type of situation.

Brace yourselves:



I attribute the lack of wonderfulness purely to my own poor choice of colour of Kureyon. I was trying to expand my colour horizons, and I think I went a bit too far. I am so not an orange, green and purple kind of guy. This is Kureyon No. 185, and pattern colour is Patons Classic in Dark Natural Mix. I originally tried to use a dark brown, and it worked at the beginning, but it kind of got lost and I had to rip back and go with something lighter.

As I was knitting along, I began to get concerned about the depth of the hat, as I wanted something that would cover my ears. Midway through, I switched to the row counts for the larger size, hence the three row stripe in the middle. I wish I would have thought of that sooner and made the lower one three rounds as well, because it looks weird with them different, but there was no way I was going back again.



On the plus side, I was able to practice catching floats, and I think I figured out what I was doing wrong before. And then I got cocky and played with the patterning on the top so I wouldn't have to catch them any more. I added that little dagger-type shape so it looked a little less like a flower.

Now, I'm really not into fashion that much, and I generally wear what I like and what feels comfortable. Yes, I am probably a prime candidate for What Not to Wear. Clinton and Stacy, come and get me any time. But, despite my lack of fashion sense and my need to keep my ever-increasing forehead warm, while I have worn, and will continue to wear, this hat, I admit that while doing so I feel kind of like this:



Turning now to more pleasant things, thank you for your suggestions for alternate cat eyes for my Fibre Trends Here Kitty Kitty kitty cat. I liked very much the idea of embroidering them on, and I tried. I really did. I will not tell you how many hours I spent trying. In the end, I had to cover them up with little bits of felt.



Kind of spooky looking, but better than what's underneath. Whiskers on kittens are a favourite thing, so I couldn't leave them out. Monofilament gives the right kind of translucent bristliness.

And just to prove that my toy cat is cooler than I, here he is, sitting in the snow.


In the Other News Department, when I switched over to the new Blogger, I noticed that I was coming up onto my first blogiversary, so I guess that means it's time for a contest!!! I liked the idea of a "500th comment" thingy, but after adding up my comments, I realized I missed that boat -- by a long shot. I had no idea you guys were so chatty! :-)

So here's the deal: I am coming up on a different and higher landmark type of number for comments. Email me what you think this number is (email addy is in the sidebar) and I'll put all correct answers in a hat (possibly the one above!) and pick a winner. In addition, the person who leaves that actual landmark comment will win. So two prizes, one for guessing the number and one for being the number. What will you win? I'm thinking ..... sock yarn. I'll pick something nice especially for the winners. Fair enough?