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.

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:

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.

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!