This time last year I was waiting for spring and desperately looking for signs of it. What a fool! This time around I know that spring does not grace the North with its presence until much later. So instead of looking for signs of spring I'm preparing for more winter by knitting woollens.
I don't knit a great deal of stuff for myself, mainly things that I gift to others, so even though I've been knitting for 4 years now I still haven't made myself a hat.
I didn't actually plan to do much about it, but some of the best handicraft projects are spontaneous ones, in my experience. Well, as spontaneous as knitting can be.
This one started with the yarn. Two winters ago I bought a couple of skeins of quite rustic Norwegian yarn in a yarn shop in Stockholm without a plan of what to do with them. Was just checking out some yarn stores with a friend and really liked the look and feel of the Sandnes Garn Peer Gynt. So I bought two skeins in dark grey and one in off white. And then sadly I kind of forgot about them.
This winter I got a craving for learning colourwork knitting, and decided to start with something simple, like a cowl or a hat. And then I remembered this yarn....
A small project in only two colours felt like a good start with colourwork, so I started looking for suitable patterns. I fancied a pattern that would remind a bit of traditional Scandinavian patterns or Fair Isle, but more clean and modern shapes.
After a few weeks of searching Ravelry I found the Epistropheid hat by Kate Davies Designs . It was perfect!
I knitted a size M exactly as per the pattern instructions. It knitted up quickly, in a few evenings over the course of a week, and was surprisingly easy.
I don't know why, but I had an irrational fear of stranded colourwork knitting. So it was a very pleasant surprise when this was not particularly difficult at all!
I wet blocked it and then debated whether to add a pom pom. Really wanted one, but also did not want to cover the beautiful crown of this hat. In the end I compromised and went for a smaller pom pom than I initially planned.
Funny story about the blocking. I blocked it on Saturday night and woke up to gorgeous sunshine on Sunday morning. There was still some snow on the ground and because the forecast for the coming days did not look good I knew this was my only chance to get some photos of the hat in the snow-covered landscape. But, the hat wasn't dry yet.
I'm not proud of what I did, but desperate times... I whacked the heating on high and put the hat on the hottest radiator in the house. Do you know what happens when you put wet wool on a radiator? It smells like wet sheep. But worse. Like, if you were to guide a wet sheep into a sauna and sit in there with it for a bit. (Only a little bit of course! I'm not painting pictures of animal cruelty here!)
But it gets worse. It still wouldn't dry quickly enough, so by noon I just gave up and grabbed the still slightly damp hat, my camera and tripod and set off looking for a suitable location. So in the end I kind of blocked it with my own head by wearing it. On the upside it is shaped absolutely perfectly for me now. On the downside, I smelled like a wet sheep for the rest of the day.
Totally worth it though. I'm superhappy with this hat and can't wait to do some more stranded colourwork! I'm thinking another hat...
