Being January, a new hat is a good thing.....

Stranded knitting is fun...most of the time.   Lately, I have been working on improving my technique.  When I saw the North Star Hat, I was itching to take on this project.

Last fall I decided I was tired of my hats.  I gave a couple away and was looking around for a few ideas when the North Star Hat popped up on Ravelry.   I had yarn left over from the thrummed mittens.  Off I went!

As I new my gauge for this yarn from having just done a project with the same yarn, I daringly skipped doing a swatch.  Fortunately, this turned out not to be a mistake.

It seems that I have THREE sets of 16" interchangeable needles.   The Karbonz were first to hand...and a lovely need for this kind of work.

When I got to be fairly skilled at color knitting, I used to hold each color in a separate hand.  That was fine, but I wanted to see if I could do better.  Keeping in mind that the yarns have to be worked consistently -- one from the bottom and one from the top -- to achieve the color dominance -- I used this to practice holding both the yarns in my left hand.

In my knitting stuff, I had a Swedish thimble.  As I started this, I gave it a try.  The yarn thimble

proved to be a disappointment.  I thought it was clunky to use and did not want to continue.  Maybe I will try again on another project....or not.

This project sped along.  When I finished it a week later, I was pretty happy with the result.  I took a picture.   I looked at it closely.   OH.  NO.

Yes, I HAD checked this as I went along and did not see this.  The only explanation that I have is that it takes place at the jog between rows.  Yes, I should have caught this.  Did I take it out and fix it?  No.  I even opted not to fix it with a duplicate stitch as I thought that would end in drawing more attention to the error.  Lesson learned.  The hat fits well...and is nice and soft.....

OH NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!