Fast Finish

Wow.  What a difference size makes.  Knitting small means finishing fast.  My second small project of the new year is finished.

This is Downtown Hat.

Knit with Shelridge Yarn DK weight for the body and a no-name bit of mohair grabbed at one of Sandy's Sister Sue's Great Yarn Give-Aways. All done on 3.25 mm needles.

This hat has been in my queue since one of my Ladies With Balls knit one for the 2014 Olympic Challenge.

You can see her in the photo above - well, not really. You can see the hat but not her as her hat turned out way too big. 

Knowing that,  I chose the teen size and it fits just right.  Also, seeing the droopy brim, which even the designer comments on, I tacked my folded brim to the hat to avoid the droops.

 I found the pattern a bit lacking.  The knitting starts with a top rectangle.  Stitches are then picked up around the edges of the rectangle and knit down forming the sides of the hat.  The patterns calls for a gauge of 40 rows to 4 inches.  OR 10 rows to the inch.  When the sides are started the pattern states to continue until 24 rows have been knit but gives no measurement for cross referencing.  At 24 rows, the hat would be less than two and a half inches deep.  Nowhere close to covering my ears.  SO I just kept knitting until the hat was about 5 - 5 1/2 inches.  It fits perfectly.

I like a hat that has form to it, as mine appears  to have when photographed atop my hat box.  Sitting there, mine  looks like the one in the pattern.  But on the head, the form is lost.  It sits like a fancy toque.  Like  this one.   Nonetheless, with its doubled mohair brim covering the ears, it is very warm and cozy and would have been a great hat for the winter of 2014 or 2015.  This year, not so much.  But this is Canada.  Cold will come again.

I feel very au courant with my year of small.  Across the nation, tiny houses are replacing the McMansions.  Here at the Harris household, tiny knits are replacing full size pieces.  Cheaper, faster, funner.   My motto for 2016.