A Hat. For ME! and a little Stash Busting too!

The Purl Bee recently ran a blog post on the Mushroom hat, which looked too cute not to knit! With a dog to walk and the frigid Illinois winter fast approaching, it was a perfectly timed post to motivate me to pick the needles back up. I am in the need to do some stash busting so I dug out some red Cotton Fine and doubled the yarn to create my own version, which is probably not as warm as the wool version but it fits nicely and is super cute.

Progress... those poor Denise needles, which were the only game in town WAY BACK WHEN in the exchangeable circular needle set, have been chewed on by said walk-requiring dog on several occasions. Not enough to toss the needles but enough to require some sanding to prevent major snagging action.


Finished product!


Side view...


Hmmm. Never really paid much attention to how flat my face was... also my nose needs some powder... also I slouch... But look at that shiny hair! If I told you I switched from my salon brand shampoo to a bargain basement brand would you believe me? Because I did. And it is fabulous! And good for the pocketbook!

Front view...


Project pattern and notes found here, in the Mushroom Hat Project Journal I tried the hat out with a ponytail, as suggested by the author of the pattern, and it is still cute - no giant pony-tail bump!

I will also share a little technological tidbit. This was the first pattern I used that wasn't in a book or wasn't likewise printed on a piece of paper! I bookmarked the journal page in my iPhone and referred to the pattern when I needed it. Additionally, since I am forever losing those little katchakatcha knitting counters, I found a free app that does exactly that - it's called Knit Counter (Lite version is free) and the free version had enough in it to keep up (sometimes free apps are awful and just a tease to get you to buy the full version but not this one!). I could keep track of two different row patterns AND a total set count (that's three counters, one handy app!). A really neat note about this app, is that if you want to start over on the row count (because you have a 4-row repetition) you can just hit "frog" and count back the number of rows you need! So incredibly convenient. And free!