On The Needles: Wee Willie Winkie Hat

About a year ago, I had a voucher for a well-known online book retailer, so treated myself to the Twenty To Make: Knitted Baby Hats book by Lynne Rowe, mainly because when I had a look at the projects in it, they looked straight forward and pretty quick to knit.

And so a personal challenge was born!

I decided that I wanted to make at least one of each hat in the book and have usually had one on the go on my needles at all times since then. 

Technically, I have already made the Wee Willie Winkie hat once before, but I opted to make it in a self-striping yarn instead of the two colour version in the book. In the interests of fulfilling my challenge successfully, I decided that I had to give it another shot!

It actually took me two goes to get started with it. I made a mistake with the stranding yarn at the beginning and so ripped it out and started over. I'm sure for other knitters, this would be a pretty quick technique, but I was just knitting as and when I could, so it seemed to take forever for it to start growing.

Once I got onto the basic stockinette stripes I like I could see it growing much clearer, not least because every four rounds I change colour, so have a visible marker for my progress! I do like the colour combinations but as I started it while I was watching Wicked for the first time, I can't help but feel like I should have gone with a green and pink combo; that's maybe one to try with the next one I make!

Apparently this is the only photo of this project I've taken so far!

This week I finally got to the point where I could start decreasing. That's always a nice bit of any hat project, because you know that with every so many rounds you'll be losing stitches and will have less and less to work with. It's still rather slow going though. I'm only decreasing four stitches every three rounds, and I started with over 100 stitches on my needles! In another twenty or so rounds, I think I'll feel the difference a little more keenly.

As if the fact that I've been working on this hat off and on for about two months isn't enough, I have another reason to get my act together and finish it; Mr 7 has requested a top and bottoms for his baby doll and the pattern calls for the exact needle tips that are currently tied up on the aforementioned hat project. I do actually have those exact tips somewhere else in the house, but I have no idea where, so the best way to get them to turn up is probably to order some new ones. In the meanwhile, I'll frantically keep knitting in the hopes of freeing up these needles for knitting doll trousers.