...two coasts, two hats, one brain...

Finally, I am done with my Lotus Blossom hat.  I finished the knitting last night and blocked it this morning. 

I really love how it turned out but I was a little bit afraid that it wasn't going to fit.  When Marcy and I started this project we were pretty excited.  As I said, we spotted the hat at Rhinebeck and knew that it had to be our bi-coastal KAL.  So we started it and after my rip out and re-start it was finally coming along.  But it was about half way through the hat that I started to think it looked a little small.

Marcy and I were on iChat one morning when I casually mentioned this.  Neither of us had done a gauge swatch because we were both sure of gauge.  I am always on gauge,  I never have to change needle size.  We talked about how it had to fit, we were using the right needles, and yarn called for in the pattern, right?  Uh-oh.  We were using the needle size called for and we were using Green Mountain Spinnery Simply Fine yarn (9 stitches to the inch).  The only problem with that is that the pattern calls for Green Mountain Spinnery Sock Art Meadow or Forest (7.5 stitches per inch).  Which I might add are completely different yarns with completely different gauges.  Yes, my gauge would have been perfect if we were supposed to use the Simply Fine, but that's not the yarn the pattern called for.  No wonder the hat looked small.  

We decided to keep knitting and if nothing else I said Paytan would be getting a new hat.  She's the only one I know with a head that small...

Marcy finished hers first and blocked it.  She sent me a text message that said, "All blocked, fits perfect!"  How could that be?  I'm not sure but now that mine is blocked it fits perfectly also.  Maybe the knitting gods were smiling down on us but for whatever reason, the thing does fit.  I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Lessons learned: 

1.   ALWAYS DO A GAUGE SWATCH, EVEN IF YOU ARE ALWAYS ON GAUGE.  Thank god this wasn't a sweater.

2.  ALWAYS DOUBLE CHECK THAT YOU ARE ACTUALLY BUYING THE RIGHT YARN FOR THE PROJECT.  I think we were so excited that all we did was grab the yarn that was in the bin under the hat and figured it must be the right yarn.  (head slap)

Anyway, I love how the colorwork turned out.  I don't do a lot of colorwork but I can tell you that after this I will be doing more!

Marcy and I got together on iChat this morning to compare hats and we really do love them!  

We just need to make sure that we double check what we are doing.  As my day would say, "If we had a brain, we'd be dangerous....