Friday, March 23, 2012

FO Friday: Norie

In between utterly failing to make any progress on the Rock Island Shawl and actually finishing all the pieces for the Wildflower Cardigan, I managed to squeak out a new hat, which will be living in a closet until at least October, because it's 80 degrees here today.

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Pattern: Norie, from Gudrun Johnston, in Shetland Trader: Book 1
Yarn: Madelinetosh Tosh DK in Baltic
Needles: Sz 6
Mods: zip, zero, zilch
Rav link

The pattern calls for 260 yards of DK weight yarn, so I'm not sure why I thought I could make do with 225 yards. Somehow, it worked. I had just a few yards of yarn left over, so if you're faint of heart, I recommend starting out with more yarn. If you're brave, though, I think the Tosh DK is a great choice for this hat (or anything, really, I'm such a Madelinetosh fan girl).

I didn't bother with a gauge swatch, I just went up a needle size as I always do--it's a smidge big, so I probably should've stuck with the size 5 needles. Live and learn. (Or, live and repeatedly make the same mistakes and then whine about it.)

This isn't my usual hat style--I tend to go for berets--so when I was done, I had no clue how to block it. I didn't want to stretch out the body of the hat, just relax the top a bit, so I popped it over a small plate, spritzed just the top with some water, and smoothed it out. Seems to have done the trick:

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It's quite slouchy, just like the pattern photos indicate it should be. Should keep my ears nice and warm . . . if and when it gets cold again. I hope it doesn't stretch out too much with wear, or I'll have to pull it all the way down over my face and cut out eye holes.

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Don't forget, you can enter to win your very own copy of Shetland Trader: Book 1, or several other awesome yarn-y prizes, by donating to my CCFA fundraiser!

1 comment :

Minding My Own Stitches said...

It's very cute. Maybe you had a bit of extra yardage in your skein to help you sneak through?