Excited, proud and hopeful

Today I finished the first of the hats. I tried it on and I wasn't thrilled. It fit, but it was thin. I fit me ok but I decided I needed Sam and Joel to try it on. I determined that it needed to be longer, and thicker. Making it longer was easy, just make the brim 2 inches longer and the body 2 inches longer. The body of the hat has decrease rounds mixed in with regular rounds. I decided that every regular round I would knit that twice. So I will be knitting a total of 5 extra rows in the body of the hat. I hope that is enough. I may have to rethink that and add in more rows. 5 extra rows do not equal 2 extra inches. Hmmm....

Anyway, I thought about how to make it thicker. I could hold 2 stands together throughout. I could buy thicker yarn, or I could make the hat double thick. I decided to make it double thick. How do you do it? Well, you start with a provisional cast on. You use a needle and a crochet hook to make a chain of stiches on your needle. Here is a good video showing how to do it from a very good teacher I might add: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3J-sUx_whE 

I was proud of myself that I could do it. I had a little trouble figuring out how to pull the yarn through the loop but soon figured it out. I know how to make a chain of crochet stitches!! So after you make your chain of stitches the same amount as your number of cast on stitches, you use your working yarn and knit every stitch. Then you start the pattern. In my case it is a 2x2 ribbing. I am going to use many lifelines and make sure I fix any mistakes.

Then when I finish the hat, I will go back to the provisional cast on and take it off to reveal live cast on stitches. Then I put those stiches on the needle and start that hat pattern all over again. The result is basically 2 hats connected but then after the second hat is done you shove it inside the first hat for 1 thicker hat! Pretty smart huh?? That should thicken up the hat's body and double or triple the thickness of the brim. The only problem I see is running out of yarn. It took a full skein to make the brim of the first hat and now I am making it even longer. I may need to buy another skein online. Good thing is that if the dye lots are noticably different it won't matter because it will be the on the inside part of the hat. Plus it's black, how much differnt can black dye lots be?

I really hope it works and I don't screw it up because I don't have time. As it is I will be making a total of 5 hats. The one I just finished and will frog, the 2 I am making into 1 and another 2 into 1 to replace the first one I just made. I have till Dec 23rd to finsh them. Wish me luck! I will feel very proud of myself if I can pull this off, they fit, they are thicker and most important that Joel and Sam like them.