The saga of the Foliage hat

After seeing this hat on Ravelry, knitted using the same Miski llama yarn I received for my birthday, I decided that my own Miski yarn was destined to become the same.

I'm now on my third attempt. I fear the Miski yarn might have its own ideas. The first time was my own fault since I didn't swatch, and I cast on with the recommended needle size. I know my tension is fairly loose, and all through the charts and so on I had a nagging suspicion that it would be too big. Why is it that sometimes we deliberately choose to ignore those little voices?

I DID sensibly rip before I got right to the end, but I was about three quarters of the way through and I was as good as finished. By this time the little voices were screaming at me. Most of the time in this situation I would do what Elizabeth Zimmerman recommends, and just find someone with a big head to give the hat to, but for one, I need a hat and I love this yarn, and secondly, it's not that easy to judge how big people's heads are physically without actually measuring them!

The second time I got lost with the pattern, and even though I went back a few rounds to try and find my mistake, I couldn't identify it. This is why I suspect I would hate lace. When you do a knit instead of a purl in rib or something similar, it's very easy to spot. I suspect it's possible to spot a mistake when you are very experienced with lace, but I bet there's lots of angry ripping and cursing to get through on that journey.

One of my aspirations for this year, along with going part-time at work (discussions have been launched, watch this space!) and developing my spinning skills (tuition booked for early Feb) is to try my hand at something lacey. I will make it small and manageable, and I will wait until I have gone part-time so that I have dedicated time off to devote to it, but I hope to achieve at least a small victory by the end of 2008!