Unfinished Bazness

A few months back, I decided to make a hat for my Dad (who, by way of explanation, is known to the family as 'Baz'). After perusing the Lincraft shelves for some time, I selected a nice soft wool-alpaca blend in a shade of blue I thought he'd like.


On inspection, I found that the yarn was actually 12-ply, something I'd overlooked when getting sidetracked by colour selection. It was a thicker than I wanted for this neat little pattern, but I wasn't too worried.


"Oh, gauge won't much matter for a hat," I thought. "I'll just use a bigger hook". This piece of erroneous logic resulted in a beanie suitable only for an individual with a head the size of a bucket. It was useless; I pulled it undone and chucked the yarn back into the stash.


A few weeks ago, on hearing that my parents were planning a day-trip to Christchurch, I remembered I never made that hat, and decided to have another go at it. I dug through the stash and pulled the yarn out again. I couldn't find another pattern I liked better than the first one, so I figured I'd just go down a hook size. Two, in fact, since the first hat was so oversized.


Using a thicker yarn with a smaller hook made the working fairly dense. The pattern itself can be a bit tricky if you're not paying attention - it's a design of v-stitches, but you have to be fairly careful to stitch only inside the v-stitches, and not in the gaps between. Even then, the shaping of the crown comes together in an an unusual five-pointed shape, and takes a while to form a recognisable hat shape.


A small amount of a lighter blue sourced from the Nana stash provided a contrasting stripe, and the beanie was complete. It was actually a bit small, this time. Ironically, if I hadn't got concerned about the weight of the yarn and just followed the pattern, it would probably have come out fine. Oh, well, crochet tends to stretch a bit anyway.


As it turned out, the beanie didn't really suit Baz at all. It sat oddly and tended to ride up and sit above his ears. Mum says he has a funny-shaped head and his hats always do this, but I think it would be less inclined to do so if it were a better  well - I tried!