The Fort Vancouver Knitting Guild Charity Hat Knitting Adventure

The Fort Vancouver Knitting Guild are wonderful people who do a lot of good works.  Because I went to one of their meetings they kindly send me their newsletter and invitations to participate in charity knitting.

Several weeks ago they sent me two skeins of 100% Merino wool that was spun in Turkey. It is a lovely walnut color.  I was thrilled to receive the yarn since I committed myself to refraining from purchasing new yarn until all that I currently have on hand has been knitted up...which so far I have stuck to...thus, since the hat project had to be in wool yarn and all the wool I have is committed to other projects I was not going to be able to help out without their yarn contribution.

Well,  Dear One was very happy to help me wind the yarn.  He held the yarn and I wound it with the Stanwood winder (which I LOVE and recommend highly).  This started out as a quick and easy project for the first few winds then the issues began to arise.  The yarn was not evenly skeined up!  What a bust!  Even changing the positioning of the yarn on Dear One's hands did not improve things.  After a LONG time we got the first skein wound. I had decided to let the other one alone but Dear One said he was happy to continue helping so I thought, "Why not?"  Well, that was the wrong idea.

The second skein was even worse! Way more tangles.

We worked on it for another fifteen minutes then it was so tangled that I finally got out my good Gingher scissors and cut it off and excused Dear One.

A few days later I went back into the work room and started untangling the yarn so I could eventually wind it up into a cake.  After pulling from one end until there was not possible way to go on, I searched for the other end of the skein and finally found it, started pulling from that end and eventually had probably ten yards of yarn on the floor, another ten yards over the ironing board, and me in the middle with an almost impossible tangle in the my hands.  After a while, even I gave up for a while and went about my regular business (which included working on the hat) and left the work room for a couple of days. 

Twice I went back in and eased out another yard or two of yarn from each end.  There was still a good-sized tangle, maybe another twenty or thirty yards, when Saturday came.  I went out to do a few errands, leaving Dear One home to rest and do whatever he does when I am away.  When I returned it was obvious that he had vacuumed the floors.  I thanked him for doing that.  He then told me that he had had a terrible time vacuuming the work room because "someone left a heap of yarn on the floor and it got sucked into the rollers of the vacuum cleaner."  OH NO!!  I was going to finish untangling that yarn.  Well, that job is now over!

Here is the finished hat.

Here is the pattern.

Cast on 84 stitches of wool knitting worsted weight (size 4) with US Size 6 16-inch circular needles.  K2, P2 ribbing for 4 inches.  Switch to stockinette stitch for another 5.5 inches then start the crown decreases.
Crown decreases:  K10, K2tog around, Knit 1 round.  K9, K2tog around, Knit 1 round. Repeat the decreases going down one stitch and following with a plain knit round until you have done your K1, K2 tog around.  By this time you should probably only have a dozen stitches.  Knit 2tog around then cut yarn and pull through all stitches and tie off inside.  Weave in ends and you have a hat.

This is a very easy hat to knit and comes out a nice smallish adult or teen hat.  Because it is so easy to knit, and easy to remember the pattern, I will probably knit another one sometime.