Snail Spirals

Since I apparently don't have a winter hat either, I made one. (How did that happen- a knitter without a hat?) Emma's hat turned out so cute that I decided to do something similar. I'm a big fan of superwarm hats, so I wanted to try and work out a double layer model with a turned up cuff, effectively making a quadruple layer over my ears. No way am I getting cold in this hat! One layer is purple yarn, the other is rainbow. This is Knitpicks Bare merino DK again.



I started by dyeing the rainbow skein. I was going to use it with the green I dyed a couple weeks ago, but then I decided that I wanted something darker so I dyed a purple skein when I did the rainbow skein. This rainbow skein has longer patches of each color, just one of each rather than two like on Emma's hat. The purple skein was also done in plastic wrap and steamed, rather than doing it in the kettle, because I didn't want to heat up a big pot o' water for one skein. The result of this was that the dye took a bit unevenly and broke, making the skein mottled with lighter spots. Because the dye broke, the color ranges from lavender to blue-purple to red-purple to dark purple. It's almost-solid and pretty subtle, but noticeable. I absolutely love the way it came out.

I started with a provisional cast on (112 stitches, US5 needles), then knit a 2 1/2" cuff section. Then I did a round of k2tog/yo, and did the rest in stockinette. I did 7 decrease points, evenly spaced, to give a spiral on the top of the hat. The last six rounds, I decreased every round so it wouldn't be too pointy.

The purple layer has a cabled cuff, and the rainbow layer has a plain K2P2 rib because I didn't want the stripes to overwhelm the cables. When I had both layers done, I had effectively knit two hats.



I joined them by knitting them together at the provisional cast on, with a two-color attached i-cord. Mmmm, fiddly but pretty!



Though it wasn't planned, I like the way the colors in the rainbow yarn pooled in arrowhead shapes at the top as the rounds got shorter, then separated into single stripes again. Emma's hat did this too, but not as much because the runs of each color were shorter.



I was a little worried that the rainbow yarn would be too clown-y and bright for me (I am supposedly a grown-up, after all), but now that it's done, I like it. It makes me feel happy, and whose business is it anyway if I want to wear a colorful hat! So now I have a nice warm hat, that I can wear like this:



Or like this.



I can't decide which I like better.