FO: Wind and Sea Sunhat

So apparently I forgot to blog about this hat I made, which is sad because it’s totally awesome and I wear it all the time.

Pattern: Wind and Sea from “Knitting in the Sun” (preview on Amazon)
Yarn: Recycled Linen/Cotton blend
Needle: US 6/4mm
Mods: None, actually. I knit exactly as written.

Like I said, I completely adore this hat. It’s lightweight, blocks the sun and looks SUPER cute. It is really light so it tends to blow off of my head unless I hold it down if there’s a breeze, but I found that putting a stretchy headband (I have a Goody one) around my head over the hat keeps it in place (I didn’t figure that out until after the photoshooot).

The construction is quite interesting–it’s knit from the outside in and then millinery wire (or 18 gauge jewelry wire, which is what I used) is crocheted into the brim by sandwiching it in the channel of the crochet stitch. It was pretty awkward to do, but it basically blocks the hat for you, so I’ll take it.

I definitely love this hat, and I might make some more in different colors and also in thicker yarn. The yarn I used, a linen/cotton blend from a thrift store sweater, was thinner than the called-for worsted weight, so the spaces in the stitches are larger than they should be. I might try to make this again with kitchen cotton stripes since it knits up so fast (that way if the Sugar ‘N’ Cream doesn’t work and is too heavy I won’t be out a lot of time. I’m definitely going to try again though, perhaps in a thicker linen/cotton (or this yarn held double), but dyed a different color.

In other knitting news, I just finished the gusset of my most recent socks and am currently motoring down the foot. Good pictures are going to be difficult when I finish since it has literally been raining all week and will probably continue. I’m going to the zoo with Joe and a friend of ours on Monday though, so I hope the weather’s nice for that. I’d also like to get out to Lake Accotink before I leave (probably next Thursday, probably by train), but I’m not sure if the weather will cooperate. Though really what I need to do is buckle down and find a damn job so I can move up here permanently. Wish me luck (on the job thing and also the weather).