Heirloom baby hat

Aran_hat

This little thing was a lot of work, but well worth it. I purchased a two-skein Appalachia Baby Design Organic Cotton kit, “Aran Hat with Earflaps,” from one of my favorite on-line yarn shops: The Loopy Ewe.  My skeins say that they are 194 yards (3 ounces). I used less than one of the two skeins to complete the hat. That’s a tad too generous an allowance of extra yarn. But the yarn is wonderfully soft, feels great against the skin, and can be pressed into service for another project. Honestly, this sport weight cotton is a bit splitty. But that’s manageable.

I used seed stitch in between the right and left crosses on the ear flaps. I think the pattern may have an error in that section–but I could be wrong about that. The pattern photo doesn’t show that section clearly.

There must be some secret to the first half of working the fish bone cable in the main body of the hat. I couldn’t come off the “purl two,” and not have that one stitch stretched over three knit stitches look really weird. So, my fish bone isn’t uniform as between the two sides. I’ve noticed other projects on Ravelry are showing the same issue, so while it’s possible we’re all missing something, best to declare it a design feature and move on.

The pattern is tough to follow in a few places in the crown decreases. Near the start of that section, it says “work 3 rounds.” I thought that meant to knit 3 rounds, but actually, the next 3 paragraphs ARE the 3 rounds.

The directions on how to work the right and left cross in the ear flaps didn’t do it for me. I hadn’t worked that stitch for awhile. Watching Cat Bordhi’s excellent video was a good refresher.

aran_hat2

Evelyn will look cute as can be in this earflap cap.