Christmas Knitting: A's Morgan

Ahh yes...I am back with Christmas knitting (on Valentine's Day no less).  Like you haven't been hearing about it for 2-3 months already. :)  Last week I finished A's Morgan.  I worked on this straight up until the Christmas holidays.  Actually, very late (or very early depending on how you look at it) the night before Christmas Eve I was knitting this.  I was making good progress, but after being so tired and not having my wits about me, I didn't think it was smart to try and complete the finishing details.

I knit this hat with Berroco Ultra Alpaca Light in Blueberry Mix.  The yarn is a DK weight and is so wonderfully soft.  I really liked this yarn, but in the end, probably wouldn't choose it again for this pattern because I'd like to see more stability/structure in this hat.

I'm trying to remember what the yardage may have been on this hat but I honestly can't remember.  I want to say I used less than one skein.  In fact, I'm almost positive that I did.  I can't remember.

Anyway - the details of this hat.  It wasn't mindless knitting.  I watched television while knitting this, but had to pay more attention to the rows and the counting than any show I was watching at the time.  The designer does have a tutorial (link on left-hand side of blog) on her website that explains her method of increasing and decreasing, but I didn't find it until after I had finished the counting.

While knitting, this hat didn't feel like it had rhyme or reason for why you were directed to knit this way or that.  Don't let that fool you.  The designer had her head on straight and this is a great example of trusting the person who wrote the pattern.  After the knitting was finished, I could see each element of the hat when I went back to look at the pattern.

The pattern has you knit a pocket for the brim/bill.  You insert your choice of stabilizer into the pocket and close it up.  I then tacked down the top of the hat to the brim as opposed to the suggested snap because I didn't think A would wear it unsnapped.  I used an old, unused baseball cap and cut the plastic brim out, cutting it down to size as necessary.  This part had me the most confused and gave me the most trouble.  My stabilizer is considerably smaller than the template given, but I had to modify it to fit into the pocket.  The problem isn't readily visible and I can't remember what went wrong there.

I got X to pose in the hat the night it was finished blocking by bribing him with a tootsie roll.  He wasn't very happy with me that night, but since then he asks to wear it all the time.  His uncle may have a hard time taking his hat home with him! :)