Here is a little something from back in November, but it is still very appropriate.  A few years ago (yes, blog posting is not the only thing I’m slow at), I started planning a new hat for my friend.  She lives in DC where one needs such things.  Since our college days she has evolved into a young professional, but she still maintains her unique style.  I knew I wanted to make her a hat that looked home made, but also fashionable, unique, but also grown up.  I also had a notion that I wanted to do a cabled band on the hat, but I wasn’t sure how to go about that.

I happened to visit another friend who is a knitter while she was working on a Christmas gift scarf.  She used this Lion Brand Yarn pattern, but she was doing it in stripes.  The pattern totally had me at reversible cables, but I thought the stripes really gave it something extra. 

Stripes!  I thought that was perfect, brown and cream stripes to keep things a little more refined.  One of my friend’s favorite colors is safety orange, so I thought a small nod in that direction would be nice as well.  I did an orange edging at both ends of the scarf and orange fringe.  In retrospect for better visual appeal, I wish I had made more fringe, but I also hate pushing fringe into my coat on a cold day.

As I had been thinking about the hat and yammering on to people about it, I kept saying that I wanted the top to look like the top of Santa’s bag.  Gathered, with an orange string tying it closed.  As I poked around for patterns to see how people did cabled bands on knit hats, I found this pattern on Knitty.  I made the whole hat following the directions, but adding stripes.  When I finished, I picked up stitches almost at the top, and then just increased in every stitch or every other stitch every few rows till the gathered top was as long as I wanted it.  I tied it off with some orange i-chord.  I’m glad I went with i-chord instead of just a crocheted chain because it makes it look a little more substantial.  

The yarn is a baby alpaca, very soft.  I was sad to see this one go, and it may be that I end up with my own alpaca hat if I end up in a colder climate sometime.