"It Looks Like the Sea"

I saw my friend for the first time in months on Sunday. Before heading off to see him, I suddenly remembered I'd bought the yarn for his birthday present and had never actually done anything with it. So, Saturday night found me desperately thinking of things to make, with a party and illness to contend with at the same time.

I recently made a foray into hat knitting (I made another friend a beard hat in September, as shown below...more on that later) so I decided to improvise my own hat pattern.

JS, rocking the bearded look (Photo Copyright Lucia P)

It took about four hours in Patons' Colourful Twist Ultimate Mix yarn. I'd been on the vodka orange for a couple hours when I finished it, so my sewing in of the ends was a bit messier than I wanted it to be, and the binding off was rather tight. It's fair to say the hat is a snug fit!

Just a note on the yarn - I absolutely LOVED it, but I will never knit with it again when I'm in the throes of a respiratory illness. I have a really severe cough at the moment, and the fibres that it threw up while I was knitting lead to a sleepless night because they all lodged in my airways and irritated them for about six hours after I went to bed. I have five more skeins of it, but as eager as I am to make something else with it, I'm going to wait until I'm totally better before digging it out again.

We headed off to Bath and presented him with the gift. It didn't really fit at first, but he seemed pleased once it had stretched a little - here he is modelling it in Wetherspoons. We took along the proper camera intending to do a proper stylish photo-shoot, but failed on that and had to do it with iPhone camera, so excuse quality!

Modelling his new hat (Photo Copyright Coranda B)

The "It Looks Like the Sea" Hat (Photo Copyright Coranda B)

The hat was named by another friend in a moment of hungover idiocy, commenting on the colours, which I was panicking about a bit!

Overall though, I'm pleased with it - and will be publishing the pattern as my first in my new blog, Plutonium Muffins, which will be launched sometime before Christmas (hopefully).