FO Profiler: Monster Hat

Hello Blog. Today is the second in my three-part FO series. I actually finished this hat well before I finished the socks. It was a quick knit, despite the considerable issues I had with it!





Pattern: Brainmonster
Yarn: Cascade Baby Alpaca Chunky
Needles: US9
Color : Blue
Cast on: December 30th
Finished : January 11





I knit this pattern once before for stress relief. I love hats and this hat is both silly, and super easy to knit. I can finish one in a day if I do nothing else, two days tops. I brought my brainmonster hat home with me and got a request for a blue one. I had the chunky alpaca in my stash, and boy what a dream was it to knit on! I did have some problems though; Gauge. This pattern is written for worseted weight, so I had to adjust the gauge. I cast on sizes 10.5's, it was clearly too lose, so I cast on size 10's. Seemed Ok so I knit the ENTIRE hat section only to find out that it was too big. That took most of an evening. Frogged that hat silly (Which made the alpaca all fuzzy BTW) and started over on size 9's. That was better although in truth I probably should have gone even a size smaller than that. Of course by then the recipiant had left despite my having hurried to finish the earflaps and the teeth in time. After she was gone my motivation to do the eyes dropped pretty low. Duplicate stitch and I are not exactly friends and the hat and I sat on opposite sides of the room and stared at eachother for a few days. I knocked out the first eye watching the new version of Escape from Witch Mountain, and the second one quickly followed. The hat is soft, and fun, I love the yarn, and I'll never get tired of knitting this pattern.

Cheers for now,
Theo