Crazy Colourful Fair Isle Hat and a Mystery Contest!

Today a very large pool of much cooler air from the North swirled into our valley. I know it is September, but it is September. Much to my dismay I had to put on a pair of long pants, shoes and socks. Fortunately my pants didn't magically shrink in my closet over the summer months. I would sure like to find the little gremlin that is responsible for that particular phenomena! I know most of us knitterly inclined folk rejoice when the weather gets cooler but it is a bit too early. I did cook a hot dinner in the kitchen for the first time since...May or June and the smoke detector went off- sheesh!!!

I thought today I would have a little chat about the hats I knit last winter. I have been yakking quite a bit lately about yarns with long colour changes. My hats are another idea you can do with these types of yarns if you are tempted to knit with them. But first.......

Mystery thing

I was going to do a little blurb about this and then I had the most brilliant idea. Let's make this a mystery contest! What is this particular item and what is it for? A prize will be awarded to the most correct answer and if lots of you guess correctly that then there will be a draw for the winner. Prizes will be awarded for the most creative or funny too.  I haven't quite worked out the details of the awards yet. I know some of you are knitters, some are crocheters, some of you are bicraftsual, some are gardeners...etc. so I thought I will award prize(s) according to the winner's interests. It will be fun!!! Oh, I am thinking the close of the contest should be in 10 days, September the 21st. You can enter more than once but each response has to be different. In the event nobody is close I will post clues in the comments section.

 Ok now for the more sedate knitting content. Last winter I wanted to knit something using colour colours to refresh my fair isle skills. I started to think about using two colours which is ok but then I had the brainwave to use some long striping yarns.

The first hat I knit I used two colours of Kauni yarn. I really like this yarn. It feels a bit scratchy in the skein but once it had a bath in some Eucalan it became very soft. Kauni has super long colour changes but there wasn't enough colour action going on in this hat to suit me.

With this in mind I grabbed two balls of Crazy Zauberball Starke. I wanted two yarns that would both contrast and complement each other. I had absolutely no idea how this would work.  I did go for a cool tone against a warm tone and it turned out ok.

I love the corrugated ribbing. It was fun to knit as I really didn't know how the colours were going to work next to each other. I weighed the wool afterward and you could knit a couple of hats from the remaining two balls or even a pair of mitts. I did knit a really nice scarf from the leftovers of one of the balls. I will do a post on that soon. I will also find the link to the pattern I adapted it from.

Have a great week and I am looking forward to reading all of your responses! Time to get those little grey cells working!!!

Keep Smiling

Chris