Ta da!
Note that the hat in question was very helpfully modeled by Mr. Right prior to being gifted, and that my sweetie has a much smaller noggin than the intended recipient. I'm happy to report that it fit Brother-in-Law's giant melon quite nicely.
Anyway, I think I mentioned that I decided at some absurdly late date to knit a pair of fingerless mitts for my shiny new sister-in-law for Christmas. Well, some time around the thumb gusset for mitt number one, I came to the conclusion that it would be sort of rude to do that and not make something for her husband too.
And so I set about making Jared Flood's super cool hat pattern on December 28 (keeping in mind that we were seeing this part of the family on December 30). It went swimmingly, and after just a few hours of frenzied knitting I was ready to start the crown decreases. Unfortunately, I had nowhere near the correct number of stitches. A quick review of the pattern revealed that I'd completely forgotten to do the increase round after the ribbing. You know, about 1" into the hat. Gah! I spent a good hour trying to convince myself that it might be alright if I just knit the hat a little longer, and maybe his head wasn't so big, and maybe...
Then (you know what's coming, right?)
I ripped the whole blinking thing out (well, back to the ribbing anyway) and started over. On December 29. Le sigh. Somehow, I managed to knit like the wind, and even got it finished in time to take a few photos *and* get it wrapped before our gift exchange. Phew! I'm awfully glad it worked out, and that he was happy with his hat, and even angling for his own pair of fingerless mitts. But really, I don't think I'd like to get quite that close to a gift deadline again.
Bonus Points: I totally knit the mitts AND the hat from stash yarn! For those of you keeping track at home (okay, I'm willing to accept that I might be the only one)... That's 4(!) projects in a row from stashed yarn! I'm hoping to continue this trend for the better part of this year, but we'll see how it goes. Anybody else stash dieting this year?
That's it from these parts. Hope y'all have a great weekend! If you have time, I highly recommend starting it off with visits to FO Friday and Fiber Arts Friday. All the cool kids are doing it.
