Another F.O.

Much to my happiness, knitting needles are allowed on planes. In Berlin, I brought a couple things with me since I didn't know what I would want to work on. However, I didn't do much knitting except on the plane so I ended up having too much yarn and too many needles with me. I didn't want to repeat this on our trip home so I planned one project with the thought that I would knit on the plane over there but not on the way back. This turned out to be true but I still ended up at a yarn shop buying yarn and needles for a going back project...

So, I looked through my stash and the patterns that I had printed off as "to do" projects. The baby alpaca that I got in Berlin was calling to me. I wanted to work with it. And I had found a pattern for a hat in a similar weight yarn with the same meterage as my alpaca so I decided that this would be the project for the trip. It would be my first attempt at a lace pattern and seemed pretty simple.

On the plane, after take-off, I cast on and worked the first couple rows. I then got into the lace part and had a mental blank on what a yarn over was. See, I thought that it had a knit stitch with it. After a couple rows and doing mental math, I realized that it was just the position of the yarn. So, I ripped the whole thing out And then John started asking questions about how I was knitting the hat. He asked why I couldn't knit it from the top down since I wasn't sure that I would have enough yarn and a different color would look better on the "brim" than on the top. In an attempt to explain why it wouldn't work, I realized that it just might work and I wanted to try it. So, I cast on a few stitches and then worked the pattern backwards, increasing with yarn overs instead of decreasing on the crown. I got it figured out (improvised really) and quite like the way I did the increases because I think it works well with the rest of the hat.

I got most of the hat done on the plane journey home but not quite. Since we had a delay going back to Dublin, I decided that I would finish it off at the airport. I knit until it was the length that I wanted and then cast off as loosely as I could. However it didn't fit anymore!! The cast off was too tight. I was disappointed but looked at the way the cast off stitches looked and realized that I could take them out since I hadn't woven the ends in yet. I put it away until we got back to Dublin and then took out the cast off, knit another row and cast off again with MUCH bigger needles. And now I love it. And a friend likes it so much she asked me to make her one and I am going to try it in silk even though I've been told sick hats don't have "structure." Since I don't know what that means and the alpaca doesn't really have structure either, I'm going to try it...