Foliage Hat

This project is brought to you by the color Emerald. 

I haven’t been much of a “green” person in the past, but there is something about Emerald that has won me over. It is so bright and happy and has enough blue undertones to please me. When I saw Emily’s gorgeous green hat on Instagram, I dropped everything and ask my sister to help me make one too.

My local stores disappointed me in their color selection. so, my sis Beth sent me over toKnitPicks to go shopping. I chose “Shine Worsted” in “Macaaw”, which is deliciously soft, and the color is just what I had hoped for. Beth also convinced me that I should try the pattern “Foliage” by Emily Mooney. For the first (several) reads, I had no idea what to make of the chart and all the abbreviations, but I slowly worked my way through each stitch and technique, watching videos on KnittingHelp.com and practicing with scrap yarn. It was surprising what my fingers could remember to do even when I couldn’t consciously remember anything from my last knitting project two years ago.

I messed up the first time and knit it way way way to lose .The hat was too big even for Andy. Such luscious yarn was too good to give up on, so I “frogged it” and knit it over again. totally.worth.it. The hat is still looser than in the pattern photos, but the slouchy hat is so hot right now maybe I can call it intentional?

Do you know what? I actually liked this crazy pattern. My complaint with knitting in the past has been the boring factor – stitch after stitch, row after row of the same thing. I was literally going cross-eyed with boredom trying to finish my cowl. This pattern, however, has enough variation to keep me on my toes, while repeating enough that it was easy to keep track of where I was.  If I hadn’t already knit this hat twice, I would want to cast- on another right away.

I’m still concentrating on more “fun sewing” this week. Do you have any happiness-making projects on your sewing table?