Quincy

Finishing the Colt's scarf two days ago inspired me to take a look at a few other projects that are almost finished. On this hat I only had to finish the top section and was worried about two things: 1.) Running out of yarn and 2.) Figuring out the best way to "hide" the kitchener stitched join that was clearly in two different points of the yarn's color variegation. In the end, I opted for following the directions on the pattern, thus not hiding the join at all. It took me several tries (and consequent ripping and re-knitting) before I read the pattern correctly. The blame for this behavior goes to lack of sleep due to my attendance at the midnight opening of the movie "Eclipse" in the wee hours of June 30th. I have no regrets! (...about attending the movie or my decision to keep working on the hat...) See for yourself:



The Details:
Pattern: Quincy, by Jared Flood from his booklet "Made in Brooklyn"
Yarn: Marks and Kattens Sarek - 2 skeins
Needles: 10.5 Bamboo
Colorway: Party (though it is a pretty gray party, I would say!)
Started: November 7, 2009
Finished: June 30, 2010

The yarn was very special to me. I found it in the very last minutes of shopping in the lovely town of Banff last summer. The yarn shop "Jen by the Fjord" is located at the end of an alley near a parking garage. They had a lovely assortment of yarns that I had not heard of before, including this one. The proprietress was such a great lady and had lots of information and also questions. It's fun to have my souvenir yarn transformed into a hat to remind me of a fun hiking vacation.

This picture shows the obvious join. The join does not look as terrible as I thought, but next time I make this hat, I will either plan ahead and purchase more variegated yarn to make a better match, or make it in one color.



And yes, I did run out of yarn. My stash supplied a similar yarn to finish the last few rows. I like how the darker color brings out the star pattern on the top. And I also appreciate the little "halo" that came from the lightening of the old yarn before the change.



Here is a memory this hat will inspire.



Happy Vacation and Happy Knitting!