Following a pattern verbatim

Following a pattern verbatim - as is written - is not something that I do very often. As I have become more confident in my knitting and crocheting skills, I'm much more inclined to look at a pattern and decide the bits that I like and ignore the bits that I don't. So I'll take a stitch pattern from one place and incorporate it into a different style cardigan, as I did with Lila, or I'll just knit the lace from a larger pattern, as I did with the Red Scarf or I'll take some colourwork and incorporate it into a different design, as with the Fishy Hat (to be blogged). I enjoy the creative and problem-solving processes that go behind taking design elements that I like from one pattern, and incorporating them into something that suits what I want to make.

In some ways, that makes me a bad pattern follower - I normally look at charts and stitch patterns, and work out construction from there so I don't have to worry about following someone else's logic for construction. In a bid to get better at this, and because I happened to have a spare ball of the yarn specified in the pattern, I decided to make the Brattleboro Hat from the frequently mentioned book on this blog, New England Knits (from the frequency that I mention this book, you could guess that I don't have any other knitting books. In some ways, this is correct - I have 'Knitting in Plain English' which only has three patterns, a cardigan heavy copy of 'Knitscene', and KAL Media's 'Knitting Collection', these are great, but none have the winsome, inspiring beauty of New England Knits).

I had a ball of Malabrigo Worsted in Lettuce, bought from Twist Yarns. Lettuce is an interesting colour - the name is apt. You could imagine it adorning a salad. It's bright and cheerful, and just a little bit garish. But it complements my Knotty gloves magnificently, so that's why I chose to make the hat out of it.



As I mentioned in a previous post, my Green Hat ended up a little too small. The Brattleboro Hat (and I've worn it almost every day since I finished it about 2 weeks ago), is the perfect size. By which I mean that it covers my ears. For me, the whole function of a hat is for it to cover my ears. They are what I want to keep out of the wind.



I have an exciting button tin, full of buttons inherited from my Mother/Grandmother/Great-Aunt. I tried several of the buttons with the hat, but in the end I decided to go with some left over blue buttons from the Esmée Cardigan. I think that they tie the hat in with my blue scarf and teal gloves.



These pictures depict a slightly crumpled hat - that is because it has been balled up in my pocket all week, not pristine and straight from the needles. Anyway, I have now completed my triumvirate of hat-scarf-gloves so most of the projects I have worked on since then have been for other people.