Keeping it covered

I've known how to crochet as long as I can remember, but the problem is, all I could crochet was scarves and blankets (blankets just being really big scarves).  The world only needs so many scarves, so over Thanksgiving break I thought that maybe it was finally time for me to graduate to making hats.

One of the problems with this plan is that I really, really suck at reading crochet patterns.  I learned the good old-fashioned way, from observing my mom, so I've never really needed that skill.  However, when you combine good old-fashioned visual learning with the information super highway, life gets pretty exciting.  I discovered that there are lots of tutorials on YouTube for learning new crochet stitches.  THIS is what I've been missing in my life!

My first project was to make a Sounders-colored stocking cap for myself.  We're now proud season ticket holders and I want to be warm and stylish come this March.

This is my hat in action a couple of weeks ago at Snoqualmie Falls.  You can see a little sliver of my Sounders scarf that I matched the yarn to.  I was quite proud of my first foray into hat-making.  Ryan's mom was pretty impressed too.  She wanted a hat like mine--and this presented a problem, because it meant that I had to actually get it right.

For her hat I used a fancy merino & alpaca mix jersey.  It's super soft and smooth.  It's also somewhat spendy, so when I ran out of green in my envisioned pattern, it required some scrambling.  I'm pretty happy with what I came up with.

Modeled by two oroblancos:

Why am I not modeling it, you ask?  Because I was sniffly and in my pajamas and not particularly willing to post  that charming image for all of the internet to see.  So you get the oroblancos.

Here's up close:

And closer: