See train hats – the plan for the background to what I’m on about here.

See stuff about train hat #1 here.

So, having sorted Bella, who’s next? Given that I had identified the yarn in the stash, it has to be Angie. So what do you give to someone who you barely know but see nearly every weekday morning, who has (some would say rather cheekily) asked you for hats for her & her friends?

Well, clearly it has to be stash yarn ~ preferably some which you haven’t paid for. I got a big bag of fluffy red & white plastic yarn from In Stitches some time ago intending to knit the overtop from Layered Skaters Top (ravelry link) and got to starting it the last week of August.

After knitting in the round from the bottom up for about 6 inches, I realised that in photocopying the pattern pages for ease of transport (to Wales & back) I’d obliterated the THIN RED LINE which indicates that you’re only supposed to repeat 7 stitches of the 13-stitch-wide chart, rather than all 13.

I wasn’t enchanted with this pattern so far, and frankly it turns out that knitting with red fluffy plastic isn’t My Thing, in spite of it reminding me of pomegranate seeds with its little white thread running through it.

So what I had done so far was mostly frogged. I got to about 2 inches down and it started to fight back, so what was left went in the bin. I hate to be wasteful, but it’s not like it cost me anything, and quite honestly it wasn’t playing the game.

So, the unravelled red fluffy plastic (now showing only slight signs of wear & tear) is now ready for an Angie Hat.

I wanted to use the pattern I’d used to make a hat just before last Christmas which ended up in Lily’s stocking (I’d made it intending it to be for my mother in law, but gauge and head size turned out to be incompatible. I could get it on my head for a bit, but when I took it off it looked like I’d had a rubber band round my head like you used to when you were a kid. No? Just me? Ok, back to the knitting…) – but I can’t find it. Anywhere.

So, I’ve improvised. It starts with i-cord, increase quickly 6 times on the first couple of rows and then settle into a nice 6-way increase of yarn-overs. When it appears to be “big enough” stop increasing (pair a yarn-over with a k2tog), then dink in a little bit more so it stays on in slightly windy weather, knit a bit of a roll-up, and then cast off loosely. Oh, and add some extra “feature” yarn-overs at the brim bit. I’ve put more detailed details on the rav page in case anyone’s so taken they want to re-create it.

And so, red fluffy hat: train hat number 2.