I made this hat to go along with Greg's Fag Hat and Kirston's Obama Hat. I had seen Ralf wearing silly hats a couple of times before, so I figured something similarly obnoxious would be a good choice for him. I hesitated to create an original pattern for fear of going too far, but determination to challenge myself won in the end, and I began sketching ideas. I wanted something with either a complicated stitch pattern and simple color changes or vice versa. I decided I didn't want to make anything cabled because it would be too difficult to make the color changes work with it, but I couldn't think of another stitch pattern that would work well with a hat. Finally I decided to make the shape of the hat itself unusual, and I thought of making a basic hat with tassels or loops added, but ambition carried me away, and I designed this spiral-striped stocking cap instead.
Am I ever sorry I did that.
This hat was a royal bitch to make. I tried to work it in the round before discovering that, duh, it was intarsia and as such needed to be worked flat and then joined. It is possible to work intarsia in the round, but, as I discovered with Kirston's Obama hat, a bit more trouble than it's worth. Of course, working with at least eighteen separate strands at once was far more trouble than either Kirston's or Greg's hats. I had to buy extra yarn bobs, which failed to keep the yarn as tangle-free as I'd have liked (though admittedly infinitely better than if I'd not had the bobs), and they added a lot of extra weight to the needles. The first several rows were a bloody nightmare. Even once I used up some of the yarn on the bobs, I still had to contend with the color changes every few stitches on every single row. It was a major departure from Greg's hat, which had several rows sans color changes and was also much smaller. On the upside, the decrease rows began after a bit, meaning the number of yarn bobs I had to carry slowly lessened, plus the "top" of the hat came to a point and thusly looked better than the (what I considered) sloppy finishing on Greg's hat.
I was going to attach a pom pom to the tip of the hat, but that obviously didn't work out. I'd never made a pom pom before, having disdained their frivolity in the past, so I bought a pom pom maker for this project. I made a large, puffy pom pom with all three yarns and was all set to attach it to the hat, but then this happened:
I thusly abandoned the pom pom, sewed the seam, and declared the hat done.
I hate that the stripes don't match on the back, but thanks to the decreases, it couldn't be helped. Oh well.
I rather like the absurdity of this hat and wouldn't mind having one myself, but I'm not sure if I could handle the headache of all those yarn bobs again, not to mention I hate not being able to work hats in the round. Maybe I'll make the next stocking cap without the insane number of stripes.
Anyway, as with Greg's hat, I don't know if this one will really get much wear, but, contrary to my bitching, I did enjoy making it. Despite all the grief, it's always a joy to see something coming together out of your own hands.
