Too much knitting...

For ages now I have enviously been watching other knitters working away on beautiful hats. Since I have such huge hair, wearing hats is kind of difficult. However, about 6 months ago, I found the perfect hat. It was amazing, and it looked good on me. I wore it pretty much constantly all winter long. Until I lost it about 3 weeks ago. I was so annoyed, but that's what will happen if you wander around London drunk. Anyway, this prompted me to have a go at making my own hat. I haven't knitted a hat before, so I decided to go with a pattern. I needed maximum slouchy-ness, so I went with Knit and Tonic's Le Slouch. I worked it up in about 4 hours, tried it on and it was just too small. Seriously, my hair is getting big. So the next day I ripped it out, and made my own version. Here it is:



And here's what I did.

I cast on 68 sts as the pattern says, but then I worked a 2x2 rib for 2 inches. I did the same increase round of K2, m1, but then I worked an extra increase round of K4, kfb. (121 sts)
After that, I knit until the hat measured about 7 inches from the cast on edge.
I decided I was going to have seven sections at the top, so on the next round I ha to decrease 2 sts to make the numbers work. I did this by k2tog at the beginning of the round, then k2tog about half way round. (119 sts)
On the next round, I placed a marker every 17 sts, giving me 7 sections. I then followed the pattern from there by decreasing a st either side of each marker, but instead of decreasing 12 sts each round, I decreased 14 sts. Et voila! Un nouveau chapeau!




The only bad thing that came out of all these hats, is that I now keep getting cramp in my left hand. I think it's from holding the dpns. I'm going to be careful not to knit too much over the next few days because I don't want to damage anything. I've got the hat bug though now. I love all the hats that Ysolda Teague has done recently. They're all so beautiful. Sadly, I don't think they'd fit over all my hair. Maybe it's time for a new hairstyle...


In other news, I'm currently working on my first submission. In my goals for the year, I wanted to submit two pieces for publication, and self-publish two myself. It is quite hard-going. The fun part is designing and knitting up my ideas, but writing out the patterns is such a headache. There is just so much to think about! I'm persevering with it because I think the first one must be the hardest. Once you've got an idea of how it all works and a template to work to, I'm sure it must get easier. So watch this space. I'll let you know how it goes.