As I recover from years of nursing school, I have lots of old projects to share! Up first is this Christmas hat I knit from the Amy Miller Donder and Blitzen pattern.
This is meant to be a two color pattern, but I immediately saw it in red, green, and white using the Barefoot in the Park colorway from The Plucky Knitter in primo worsted (“primo worsted” seems to be called “primo dk” now) that had arrived at my doorstep as a surprise subscription colorway (about a million years ago). I tracked down a red to go with it (Peep Toes from The Plucky Knitter) on Ravelry from a fellow knitter, and then had to find a white. A real white is HARD to find with Plucky, so eventually I gave up and purchased a white in a similar weight at a local shop.
This pattern is meant to be knit as a two color fair isle pattern and it would have been much better had I not made the hearts red in terms of ease of knitting and tension. The hearts make for some very long carries and initially I was worried about how the hat would work out, but blocking made all my fears go away (although some of the hearts are a little wonky in shape). I also am not sure why I decided to have one of the zig-zags be white and the other red. In retrospect I would change that, too, as it makes me a little crazy looking at the photos. Oh well.
Some pattern notes that aren’t colorwork related–this ends up being a very long hat. I would probably be tempted to make the brim a little shorter than called for and maybe get rid of a couple of lines of the pattern (maybe a line of polka dots from top and bottom?). I also find that this is a really loose hat on my head, and would do 2×2 ribbing versus 1×1 to help correct that next time. (Someone told me this would make it tighter, but I don’t know for sure that that is true.)
For all my sizing and color choice concerns, though, this hat is probably the most complimented thing I have ever made. Multiple loved ones have hinted that they would either like this very hat or an exact replica (alas this was a labor of love I am not likely to repeat thanks to those long carries!) and a stranger even stopped me in REI to tell me that he liked my hat! So if you do unwisely tackle this hat in three colors, you will at least be well complimented after! 😀
