Younger son with his new hat, watching a llama and alpaca show at the 2008 New York Sheep and Wool Festival.
Younger son wearing the hat, happily watching a presentation with live reptiles at the Festival.
Younger son complained that the wool hat (Lopi bulky yarn) that I knit for him is too scratchy. The main intent of having the wool hat was to wear at his outdoor six hour long class where he hikes all day. I wanted wool because I knew of wool's warmth properties and that it also breathes when the person is hot, and that when wet it is still warm. I figured wool was best for warmth all around. It also was to be used when on Cub Scout camping trips especially when in cold weather and they need to wear a comfortable and warm hat to bed.
I already had this acrylic yarn on hand. I purchased it in August with this project in mind. The yarn S.R. Kertzer Northern, worsted. It is variagated and is a bit of a forest type camoflauge versus old militray green camo or desert military camo. The story with this yarn is I was in a local yarn shop looking for a camo yarn in wool and the shop owner talked me into buying this yarn as she said that acrylic would be good enough for young boys mostly as all kids, teenagers and even adults who don't fully appreciate hand-knit gifts from loved ones or friends, some of whom wreck said hand-knitted gifts. I was swayed by the opinionated woman (you would not believe the rest of our exchange if I told you, she was so brutal that my husband was upset by her, he was with me you see, and he thought I should have chosen to refuse to patronize her store, but I did, as I was out of state on vacation and desperate for yarn to knit with and thought I'd start the hat that very week ), so I bought it. Thinking back, I don't know why I had not brought back to mind the base fact that I wanted wool for its warmth for the hats for my boys and stated that to the shopowner to get her off my back about buying this acrylic yarn.
This was my first experience knitting with acrylic and I didn't enjoy it. It slipped and slid on my bamboo needles like wool never has, for me. I had a hard time keeping the row of stitches from twisting as I worked. Also my needle kept splitting the yarn and then it would fray and I'd have to deal with backtracking the needle to fix that and it just was sloppy to work with. I also had a had time with the tension. And acrylic yarn is so stiff and unforgiving!
I decided to use the 'pattern' that I used for my own hat. That is, after casting on, knitting a one inch rib with K2, P2. Then making up whatever stitch you want for about an inch, then changing it, so on and so forth. I winged it and did whatever I felt like doing until it was time to start decreasing for the crown.
I began this hat last Friday night and finished it on Saturday night. It took less than four hours for me to make. I knitted as my younger son and I watched two movies.
My younger son loves the hat so much he went to bed wearing it on Saturday night and wore it all day Sunday at the New York Sheep and Wool Festival even when it was warm and sunny enough to no longer require the wearning of a hat!
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