I have a hat!

After the 50+ hats that I've knit for others, I finally knit one for myself.

It was intended to be special, contain elements that are meaningful to me, and above all, to be beautiful.

My family ancestry is Heinz-57, but mostly British Islander, particularly Welsh, Scots and Irish. I've always been drawn to Celtic knotwork and knew that I wanted that in my hat. I also was born in the Celtic month of Beithe (Birch) and thought I'd include leaves, as well.

I used the BFL/Tussah in the Viva Otoño that I
spun, after removing it from the inventory at Oregon Flock and the gray Corriedale/BFL X yarn that I spun while at Oregon Flock and Fiber. Since the BFL/Tussah was a gray based fiber, it looked best with the gray background. I tried it against black and brown and neither worked.

 The color is much brighter in real life...

I also wanted to keep the "yurt" style going, but instead of inserted I-cord, I did cables, knit along in the fabric (not inserted).

 When I started it, I used the two color cast on, but forgot to purl the first row, so the bottom curled. ARGH!! I went back and picked up the purl bumps on the cast-on edge, and did an I-cord bind off, which fixed that - Yay!

Knotwork pattern from "Charted Celtic Designs" by Co Spinhoven

Birch Leaves - adapted design

I'm pretty pleased with it. I particularly like the way the colors progress upward through the knitting.

It covers my ears easily, and is warm! Just in time for winter!