FO: Snail Hat and a Hill Country Hat

Surprise! I made another bunch of freaky little handspun hats. These ones started out as fleece; this was actually the very first raw fleece that I processed myself.



It's a CVM from a farm in California, and just like every time I'm in sunny California, it had a bit of sunburn on the tips. I washed and carded into rolags, and then spun it up into a lofty bulky-weight 2-ply yarn.







It was fuzzy and soft and a bit rustic looking. I promptly threw it in a bin and forgot about it for a few years, until this weird hat craze got me pawing through my stash for good odd skeins of handspun to hattify.

First up is a smaller hat- I made this for a gift for a child. It's not toddler-small, but it's big enough for a bruiser of a 3 year old.



It's the Snail Hat from Elizabeth Zimmerman. I already made one of these with some core-spun yarn, and I like it in a good fuzzy 2-ply much better. It's a very easy, rhythmic quick hat.



The second hat is the Hill Country Hat from the Knitter's Book of Wool. Love that book.



I'm a little meh on this hat. It has some interesting corrugated rib patterns that you really can't see because the yarn is too fuzzy. I will try this hat again, but with a worsted-spun yarn that will show stitch definition better.



The pattern is just completely lost in the yarn. Ah well. It's warm though.

I haven't been spinning too much, but I did sample my next big spinning project:



It's Muriel, the Merino fleece that got sent away to a Zellinger's. It's going to be something beautiful if I ever get around to spinning it.

I'm also finishing up Another Sweater. This one is the Coraline pattern.



It's very fine gauge and it's taking me a while, but it's an easy pattern. I feel like I could do the smocking in my sleep at this point. It's pretty much done, but I completely lost my head when it came to measuring and the sleeves ended up about two inches shorter than where they needed to be. I'm fixing that quick like a bunny and it will be done. I guess I won't have to go naked at Rhinebeck this year.

FO- Handspun Artyarn Snail Hat

I've been admiring this pattern from E-Z for years now. I've had a few friends make them, but I loved my friend Knithound Brooklyn's the best.



She used her fabulous handspun and I just loved the colors.

I decided to take the artyarn plunge and use my corespun yarn for this pattern.



I've never knit with corespun, so I wasn't quite sure what I was in for. I ended up being better suited for something that needs a lot of drape. It had no real structure, so it probably wasn't the best choice for a hat that I wanted to have a pointy top.



Oh, that weird bump? Not a giant tumor. It's my hair- I had it pulled up in a high bun. Shoving my hair into the top of the hat is the only way I could get it from flopping over.



It's not bad. The yarn is kind of on the thin side for this pattern, and it's a bit too busy to see the swirls really clearly. I really want to make this hat again with a big, downy chunky yarn to do it justice.

It did knit up very fast- I think I started it while I was getting a pedicure and had it halfway done by the time my nails were dry. It might have taken a bit over 2 hours total. I can't wait to make another one. It's very easy on the yardage and it's super cute. This particular one isn't especially warm, but with the right yarn it could be.

The specs: I used size 10 needles and about 90 yards of my aran-ish weight handspun from a Butterfly Girl Batt. More about the corespun yarn I made back in October here. It's part of my A-Z stashdown challenge as well.