my Holiday Bowl Hadley hat!

Dec 26, 2014

pattern: Hadley Hat, my free pattern
yarn: Bernat super value in red and white
needles: size US 10 / 6.0mm circulars and dpns

It's been so fun, knitting along with Elise as we get ready for the Holiday Bowl! I worked on my adult sized Hadley Hat a few rows at a time in between knitting presents, finishing it up just a few days ago - just in time for kids to get sick! I was actually worried I wouldn't get photos of it or be able to share the final hat in time, so I hopped in front of our tree with my iPhone and the TimerCam app, and hoped for the best.

I wrote the Hadley Hat pattern almost four years ago now, and when I wrote it, I think I was a much tighter knitter than I am now. The pattern calls for worsted weight yarn, but size 10 needles with 80 stitches cast on, which seems very large to me now. In fact, while the hat wasn't too wide to fit around my ears, it sure is super slouchy, far slouchier than I remember it being when I first wrote the pattern and knit Hadleys on repeat a few years ago!

While I love a slouchy hat, I'm considering re-writing the pattern a bit. I could just change the needle size, which would solve most of the problem, or I could decrease the number of stitches and rows for each color section, which would keep the extra flouncy nature of the fabric when the yarn is knit on these larger needles.

Or I could leave it as-is, and add a note to check for gauge, and to probably size down the needles.

Pattern issues aside, I am totally smitten with the idea of knitting the same pattern with another blogger and sharing the progress as you go. With a hat, that becomes more of a "here's what I'm going to knit" post followed by a "here's what I made!" post, rather than a huge series of posts, but the idea is so fun I think I want to do it again! And again! And again!

For those who shared projects with the #holidayknitalong tag on Instagram, it's been so much fun seeing your projects, hats and other things. I hope I remember to use the tag again next holiday season, and a bit sooner at that - I love to see even the smallest peeks into what people are making and gifting!

I'll be wearing my hat proudly tomorrow night as Nebraska takes on USC in the Holiday Bowl, and hope it brings my team good luck!

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