I thought about making an amazing twisty, cabled slouchy hat, but that would take a lot of time and really, I need a hat NOW. And if I made such a lovely hat, then I'd need things to go with it, because there's the whole "matchy" problem. You know, where you recognize a knitter on the street not by the amazing knitted stuff she's wearing, but by the fact that none of it goes together. If I make a tricky, cabled hat, I'd want to do it with a fairly lightweight wool (not superwash--that wouldn't be warm enough), and then the other matchy bits would take forever to make, and they might not be thick enough to keep me warm next January when the temp drops to -21C (or worse). So, I've realized that what I want is a quick, thick hat. Something simple, but beautiful.
Looking through my stash, I found some recently acquired chunky alpaca/wool single-ply yarn in soft shades of pale robin's egg blue and green. I used Emily Ocker's circular cast-on, made famous by (you guessed it) Elizabeth Zimmermann, and in no time I had 48 sts, enough to transfer everything to a 16" circular.
Beautiful yarn like this calls for a simple shape. Not sure yet where this is going, but I'm loving it. Best of all, I've enough to make mitts or a cowl. Matching two out of three seems a better plan than three out of three, don't you think?
