Foliage Hat #26 or You can block that shit right out, right Kim?

Foliage from Knitty has been in my Ravelry Queue since 2008. Why so long? Well, insecurity about lace knitting, lace chart reading, the hat isn’t appropriate for Wool-Aid, and I didn’t think any of my nieces would like it.  Still, I wanted to knit it.  What about me? Despite living in New England, I am rarely ever cold enough to wear a hat. I don’t look good in hats. I am lazy and don’t walk outside when it’s cold out, or hot out, or at all really. Mostly I wear hats when I am shoveling or using the snowblower.  And really, how many hats do I need for that? Previously my favorite snow removal topper of choice was this Noro hat I knit, http://www.flickr.com/photos/26800104@N08/5023742456/
because it is light enough, loose enough it doesn’t give me a headache, and it has those yarnovers-so I don’t get a hot head.  Also it’s the first time I knit a project with Noro Kureyon, and it is purple and pink.  We’ll pretend that olive-green isn’t in there.  Now that I’m older and wiser, I know I could have just cut that color out.

So I decided to knit the hat anyways.  I think I have stirred up Khione with all this hat knitting .  She is the Greek goddess of snow.  Daughter of Boreus, god of the north wind.  In the Hero’s of Olympus she is one evil character!  How dare she go after Leo?  I love Leo almost as much as I love Percy Jackson.  Actually in House of Hades he has a much better role than Percy, at least I find his chapters much more entertaining.    I digress again…

The hat, where was I?  We’ve had about 10 inches of snow this week so the hat is getting a work out.  Damn Khione.   I do love the little muffin tops on the plants in pots.

I decided to knit this one in Lamb’s Pride bulky.  There is a worsted version also.  Not a great choice for the pattern.    It would have looked much better in something that wasn’t a single.  Probably would have been prettier in the lighter yarn also.  The hat was actually quick and easy to knit.  I really need to force myself to knit more lace.  And I know anyone who knits actual lace is rolling their eyes at me calling anything knit on size 10.5 needles lace….  Then I decided to try a different bind off than my usual.  I tried the Invisible rib bind off.  The hat sat for about a month then.  This step in the bind off had me scratching my head.  ” Bring the tapestry needle behind the first knit stitch and insert it knitwise into the next purl stitch, pulling the yarn through.”  Still not sure I did that correctly.   I messed it up multiple times.  And as it is a type of sewn bind off it was really starting to tear up the single yarn.  Another bad choice.  This hat seriously needs blocking.

Bind off close up

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Unblocked

Blocked

And on a head