Hat Challenge FO #1: Stevedore Hat

Hoo boy.  I wasn't sure about this hat until about two days ago.  See, I was inspired to make it when I saw my friend Ondrea working on a really cute version just about a year ago.  It stuck in my brain, but I sometimes have this problem where I can't use anything in my stash for a project because it just isn't quite suited to it.  I had my heart set on some Tosh Merino Light in some sort of grey, and I finally found the right color at one of my LYSs about six months ago.  I swatched, got gauge, and cast on, but realized after knitting about a foot of the brim that I had cast on with the wrong size needle.  A while after that, when I was no longer angry at it, I cast on again, knit the brim in a day or two, picked up and knit the body of the hat, and then tried it on my head.

And it was tight.  Like, really tight.  And silly-looking.  I put it down for a month or two, then finally threw caution to the wind and finished it the other night.  And lo and behold, a good blocking has turned it from a "maybe" into a "hell yes".  Lumberjack helped me pick out these nicely weathered wooden buttons, and I sewed it all up this last weekend.

I call it the Stevedore hat because a good piece of it was knit in the front seat of my car in Ballard, a part of Seattle known for its maritime industries, while killing 10-20 minutes before class in the morning.

And can I just say that Tosh Merino Light is one of the most fun yarns to work with, ever?

Okay.  Glad we had this talk.

Pattern: Little Things by Veera Välimäki

Yarn: Madelinetosh Tosh Merino Light in colorway Tern, about 210 yards of a 420-yard skein

Needles: US 2.5 DPNs for the brim, size 4 US 16" Addi Turbo Lace circulars for the body

Mods:  I only picked up something like 120 stitches when I initially picked up stitches for the body of the hat.  On the next row, I increased eight stitches evenly across the round.  It doesn't seem to have affected the fit or anything.

I also only knit 1 inch of i-cord instead of 2 inches at the top, since 1 inch seemed long enough.