It All Started With A Random Thought

I had decided that it was time to push myself a bit and work my way up to an intarsia project that I am planning on doing in a bit.

The thought of a hat with our departmental symbol came into my head.  Part of it could be done in intarsia..part in colorwork.  I like colorwork.....and need to work on my intarsia skills.

Using multiple tools, I figured out the graph for the symbol.  I realized that I was going to have to use fingering weight yarn and 0's for the hat to make the hat look close to what I had in my mind.   That meant......oh dear....00's for the facing.   After using a ruse to get the measurements of the intended victim's head, I did the math to figure out what I wanted to do.

I did not, in my giant stash, have the right yarn.   I ended up going out on-line and finding some Cascade Fingering weight to get the right weight and the right color.   While I waited for the yarn to come, I watched Lucy Neatby's Intarsia video to get ready.

Lucy Neatby is a knitting genius.   Watching what she does in her videos is like watching someone do magic.   When she shows how to do intarsia, a happy knitter is imbued with the glorious feeling that anything that can be dreamed is possible.   If only this lasted through that knitter's actual project.

I will say, that other than the ritual cursing of the collapsing, breeding, and tangling yarn butterflies, this one was fun.    I learned a lot...and I am happy with the project.

One day in the late and lamented yarn temple Borealis, I overheard Lucy Neatby teaching a class.  She told the knitters that the inside of their knitting should be as tidy as the outside of of their knitting.   Mrs. Gasper, my 4-H sewing leader, taught us that about the garments we made under her direction.  She also was an excellent teacher.  I had not thought of her for a long time before those words brought her to mind.  Now every time I hear Lucy Neatby, I also fondly remember Mrs. Gasper.   Here, for both of you, is the inside of the hat.

I did not make a pattern for this, but did the entire thing with back of the envelope calculations.  I DID THE MATH.   I will admit that I set up calculations in Excel to make sure that I got the decreases exactly right.

The recipient was allowed to model and see it today before my knit group sees it.  He likes it and says it fits like a glove.

While, yes, I would have loved to decrease the mighty stash, I feel the trade off of the increase in knowledge was a good one!