Sunday, September 28, 2008

No Attacking, Just Hatting

Even though I had a good experience overall with the last Hat Attack competition, I decided to sit this one out.  With assignments due and exams looming, I felt like I had enough deadlines in my life right now and adding any more pressure would be just, well...stupid.  Priorities, you know?

It was interesting to watch from the sidelines.  I could be wrong, but it seemed just a little more tame this year, not as much smack talk going on.  And really, that's almost the best part!  Last year one of the main attractions for me was that the hat pattern used for the competition was designed for Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride.  This year it was designed for one of SWTC's new yarns Therapi. I haven't seen it any stores that I visit and I'm hearing mixed reviews about the yarn - let me know if you've got some input!

But I do miss the hat knitting a bit.  Hats are almost as portable a project as socks and have the advantage of being singular - you don't have to knit two of them to be done!  I have plenty of patterns in my queue and lots of great wool in the stash.  But in my corner of the world it's still too warm to be knitting with worsted weight wool.  One of the patterns at the top of my list for a while has been Cass Long's Chicken Tam.  The pattern calls for Berocco Love It, a cotton and acrylic yarn, and when I saw that my local yarn shop had it in stock, I figured this was just meant to be.



Ahhhhh yesss.....a hat on the needles again - feelin' good!

I would have liked to try this in a solid so the lacy stitch pattern shows up more, but the shop only had the multis in stock, and only two colorways of that.  I ended up choosing the same one that Cass used, simply because it had the most potential to possibly ever match anything I wear! The yarn is nice though, very easy and comfortable to knit with and I'd definitely use it again for warm weather knitting.

Since taking that photo I've completed one full repeat of the stitch pattern with one more to go, and then I launch into the decreases.  So far it's knitting up quickly and the pattern is simple and flawless. But whether or not it fits my strange pointy little head is, of course, anyone's guess!  

2 comments:

Sheepish Annie said...

I wish my hat-in-progress was making me as happy right now. ::sigh::

But that is a lovely tam and seems to be behaving ever so much better than mine. Maybe I just picked the wrong pattern...

Logan said...

Awww, I missed it again.

Funny, I had just added that pattern to my Ravelry queue before I read your post. (Do you read her blog? She's brilliant.)