Wash, Block, Repeat.

I like striped hats. I especially like striped beret type hats. Witness below, the dk weight hat I knit for V. a couple years ago:





KnitPicks came out with some neon colored yarn not long ago and I got the wild idea to combine the two. I started with yellow and gray:

This is fingering weight yarn. No surprise there, coming from me. Here's how the top of this version looks:

I like it, but the sizing wasn't quite right, especially after I blocked it on a plate. Yeah, yeah, I know - I should have run a piece of yarn around the base of the hat ribbing and pulled it on so that the ribbing wouldn't necessarily be blocked as well, but that strikes me really as just a short term solution. I know from experience that hats stretch out with wear. So the ribbing has to be a little tight, even if it's blocked with the hat, IMHO. So... I knit it again, but in navy and tan, which is what I had on hand in the same yarn.

I finally got the fit perfect, even after blocking. However...

I was knitting this as a publishable pattern, and waiting all this time for my yarn support. I was feeling as clever that I had it all worked out to perfection before the yarn came for the sample... and then the yarn came. In worsted.

Which, alas, is really nobody's fault. At no time did I specific yarn weight. I had completely forgotten that the neon yarn came in more than one weight. Urgh!

Now I'm starting the process all over again. I recalculated for worsted and knit it up. Same problem: the band is too loose. I have to do some swatches of ribbing, wash and measure them, and then recalibrate, and re-knit.

This kind of stuff is one of many reasons I never seem to get the dishes done.