mountain hat.

we decided to run away from home for the day on saturday, with the dog and a few projects to work on in the car in tow, and went up to the mountains for the afternoon! the fall leaves and colors are so gorgeous this time of year, i can hardly stand it. i've been trying to be better about using my time to finish up projects no matter where i am, and i've noticed that i've had lots of car time recently that is not being put to good use! so, instead of working on embroidering several quilt squares i brought with me, i finished crocheting a scarf for the shop and then got inspired to make a hat for myself.

i started off about halfway through the 2.5 hour trip, very ambitiously thinking it would be great to have a cute little new handmade hat to wear for the pictures we would be sure to take when we got up to the top of the parkway. if i hadn't been winging it on the pattern, and made it much too wide like a not-quite-right beret, and ended up pulling literally half of it apart and redoing it, i might have finished it on the way there!

as it was, i had almost finished it when we got back to the house that night, and all it needed was a finishing chain stitch around the edge. i do almost everything i can get away with in a double crochet stitch because it is twice as big, and i tell myself twice as fast, but i think a nice little chain stitch around the edge just gives it a finishing touch. i also did a darker brown stripe along the bottom to contrast the really pretty taupe of the hat.

next up is a matching scarf with the leftover yarn of both browns, and of course, some green thrown in the mix and another hat for my husband in a dark brown with a green stripe! i have no idea where the pattern originally came from, but this is the simplest hat i've ever tried to make, the same one i used to make a baby hat a few months ago (i just added the giant flower on top for fun). to make it adult sized, i just upped the thickness of the yarn and the crochet hook size.


so, if i can just hurry up and finish matt's hat, we will all three have matching hats for the winter!