FO - Manos Earflap hat

I finally figured out the mechanics of the now infamous Ear Flap Hat and thanks to the very patient Julie (who answered several of my very silly questions) and my LYS employee, Cassie, (who answered even more) it's finished tonight.

Yarn: Manos Del Uruguay color 114 (Bramble)

Pattern: Julie's Ear flap hat

Let me start by saying I love this yarn. Every time I am in a yarn store, I gravitate toward it. I squish samples, finger skeins, and when I finally brought some home I visited it often in my stash, bemoaning the fact that I didn't know how to make ear flap hats. Since I'm picky, I scoured the internet for a ear flap hat pattern that's ear flaps weren't too triangle-y near the bottom, wasn't too difficult to follow, was free, and for which I would be able to get gauge with my limited needle supply and iron clad yarn choice. I found Julie's ear flap hat and then started trying to teach myself increases using the internet and waste yarn. It was slow going. Snail paced. And frustrating. What sort of slack jawed knitter am I that I can't handle basic increases for a self proclaimed BASIC hat?!

This morning I sat and tried to get my KFB increases to work, again. I kept getting the same results - left side super, right side wonky. I tried the M1R and L that Julie suggested but I wasn't sure it looked the way it was supposed to. I was ready to break all my DPN's when I finally threw the whole thing into my knitting bag, put my shoes on, and headed for my LYS.

Enter Cassie, the nicest, friendliest, most rad yarn store employee ever. She tried her best to figure out my wonky KFB and when she couldn't, she offered to make a nice yarn cake out of my waste yarn, and even look at my M1R + L. She gave me the go ahead for those and then we chatted for a little while about spinning, what sort of spindle she thought I should use, and the wonderfulness of Manos. Things got pretty busy so I left her to her yarn type work and headed back home, ear flaps on my mind.

Since Cassie had been so helpful, and I had all of Julies advice to fall back on, things went fairly quickly and by 10 or so tonight after working on and off today I was ready to start decreases. I somehow ended up with 73 stitches instead of the 70 called for in the pattern even though I had K2tog the 4 times I was supposed to - to snug up the ear flaps. As usual, I noticed this way too late and instead of frogging, I just evenly spaced three decreases in the round before I started formal ones. It worked out.

(That's my roommate,Megan. She's such a good sport. She might also be bribed with hand knits, or threatened with pointy objects. Or both.)

I finished at about 11:45 tonight after weaving in ends (badly, I must say, I have to figure out a way to make my finishing look more neat) and adding braids. After trying the thing on myself I noticed that one of the ear flaps looks a smidgen longer than the other. I measured a few different times, with a ruler, and matching up the flaps side by side so I'm not sure how this happened. I think I'm going to compensate by shortening one of the braids which on second thought looks too long in it's own right.

I feel so much better having proved that I can make a simple ear flap hat. Even if did take two people, knittinghelp.com, and is still a tiny bit wrong, I love this hat.

xo,
Emily