A Hat Story

Wednesday night was very, very cold and windy, the kind of night to make a knitter realize that her warm hat was not warm enough. I was wearing the alpaca hat I made a year ago (I can't find that I blogged about it, but it was made using the yarn left from this alpaca shawl), and it is warm, but the wind was just blowing through it.

While I'm not getting rid of it by any means, on Wednesday night, I needed more.

The other warm hat I have is the double-knit one I made a few years ago. But when it's really cold, I really wish I had made it an inch or two longer; the alpaca one is longer, with a bit of a slouch, and I like that look better, plus it's better for covering the ears.

So, I thought, time for a cross between the two?

I found some Cascade Eco Duo in the stash, and wound it. Well, not easily: the first skein turned out to be in pieces, so that instead of ending up with one ball of yarn, I had four.

Tsk, tsk, Cascade. Not nice. And as annoyed as knitters get by knots in a skein of yarn, these weren't even knotted together, which is worse. Plus, there was this thin spot I noticed, which is worrying:

At least the other skein had no issues.

When I was ready to cast on, I was still thinking of making another Doubleknitski, but I sat there holding yarn and the needles and thinking, You want this to be a fast hat? You will not be fast at this. I hesitated, started to cast on, ripped it out, and started again holding the two yarns together, going by the Mollie Mae pattern of the hat above, instead. Double-thick should still be warm, if perhaps not as much as double knitting.

I am not a hat expert, but I have made a few, and my experience is that if I cast on enough stitches that joining them on the circular needle is a little bit of a stretch, that will be a good number, at least for a first try. So with this yarn held double, I cast on 60 stitches and joined it from there. When I had a couple of inches, I put it on a longer needle to make sure I could get it over my head, and I can. It's snug, but better that than loose. They usually stretch out a little anyway.

I'm off for a relaxing Friday night, and this will be longer, ere long.