Crocheted hat discovery!

I was taking a break today from writing patterns and working on projects, when I decided to visit the Coats & Clark web site. I came across a picture of a hat (the one pictured above) that had my name attached to it as the designer. "Wait a minute," I said to myself. "I don't remember working anything in that yarn! And the only hat I did for Coats was in ......." And then it came to me. The hat I designed was in a yarn that has been discontinued, and Coats is now publishing the pattern in Vision, one of the Moda Dea yarns. And yes - that is the pattern I designed! And good news - you can download it for free. Click here.
But best of all, I have been drooling over some new yarn that I spied in a couple of yarn shops. Self-striping wool! Colors to die for! Lots of yardage in one skein, so I think if I make this hat in the new yarn, I would only need one skein. I just may have to start renewing my stash, one skein at a time.

Added on November 12:
I found some yarn in my stash that I thought would look good as this hat, so I made it today. And, yes, it did take about 2 hours. However, I was following the pattern and found an error in it. At least, it didn't seem right to me at the time. But I was at our Wednesday night Sit and Stitch at our local B&N, and didn't have with me the copy of the pattern that I wrote. I just had the one that is available on the Coats web site. So I wasn't sure how to correct the error - add more row repeats, or just know that the rows were numbered wrong. And I hoped it wasn't MY mistake when I wrote the pattern. :-) When I got home, the first thing I did was turn on my computer, find the pattern file for the hat, and check it out. Whew! It wasn't my mistake. The pattern, as published, has an excess of rows. The row counts at the end don't make sense. So - here is the correction:

Rows 14 – 72: Repeat Rows 2 through 13 four more times. Then repeat Rows 2 through 12 one time.

After you do this, you will have 72 rows all together. Then, follow the directions for sewing the seam and gathering the top.

That Crochet Dude does it again

I was in Houston last week for 3 events - the International Quilt Exposition, a workshop I was teaching at Yarntopia in Katy, Texas (more on that later), and ...... the launch of the Crochet Dude's new book, Designs for Guys. I've been waiting impatiently for the book to be published, because I wanted to make some of the sweaters in there for ME! But when I was visiting with the Dude, he started crocheting one of the hats that he designed. He told me that you can use any yarn, and any size hook that works with the yarn. And, because I had a single skein of some fabulous yarn that I purchased during one of our field trips to local Houston yarn shops, I thought I would also crochet that hat. I used bulky yarn (I don't have my info with me now - and I don't have a picture of the hat yet, but I'll add all the info and a picture when I get home from my teaching road trip), and I made the hat longer. It didn't take me long, even though I was influenced by some wine, and it may just become my favorite hat this winter. So just because the book says Designs for Men doesn't mean, ladies, that we can't make these designs for ourselves. There is a belt in there that I am going to make for me (and my husband may get one, too) and a hoodie that is just speaking my name. If you want to see a picture of the hats that the Dude has made so far, check out his blog:
The Crochet Dude, and then click on the above picture of the book to get more info and reviews of the book.