Next hat, same as the first, a little bit smaller and a little bit.... less stripey?

Me: Look, I finished the hat
Sister: Wow, it looks great!
Me: Well, it's quite a bit bigger than I'd planned. I'm going to do another one on smaller needles.
Sister: No! It's perfect! Look, it fits me really well!
Me: Um... well you can have it if you want. On the condition that I can take lots of photos of you wearing it.

She was right, it really does suit her:

And that's why I have lots of photos of my sister wearing her new hat, which she loves! Quote: "It keeps my head warm and it doesn't give me hat hair". So I think that's a win!

Even so, I've started version two on 3.25mm needles as I want a hat for myself that is slouchy but not quite so big. If that doesn't work then I'll just do another blue one for myself with less rib and hope it sticks on my head as well as it does on my sister's.

The wool for the new hat came from Get Knitted last Friday where I spent far too much money on some amazingly soft Sublime 4ply (on sale!), some lovely stripey Zauberball and lots of sets of DPNs that I needed. Yes, needed.

I fell for the Zauberball because of the fantastic colour but I'll admit that I'm already having some doubts. For a start, how is this possibly 4ply? I was avoiding using some Jawoll Magic because it's 3ply and I'm sure that the Zauberball is no bigger. Plus I've become paranoid after reading the comments on Ravelry about splitting, knots and sudden colour changes. Nonetheless I've started the hat and, if anything, I'm a little surprised that the colour changes are so gradual. It's what I was looking for and I think it'll be fine for the main body of the hat but the border is looking pretty boring in all one colour. I think I'd probably try striping the border section from the inside and outside of a ball if I was going to do another in self-striping.

It's looking great so far and I'm forcing myself to go more slowly and take more care over my stranding and it's paying off. But the best thing so far is the lovely soft, squishy feel to the Sublime 4ply. I want to go back and buy the lot while it's on sale!

The other thing I bought at Get Knitted was some impossibly white alpaca silk from Blue Sky Alpacas. That's earmarked for my Sizergh scarf if, if and when this hat is done. I feel a lot happier now I've bought something suitably soft, my hand-spun just wasn't working out right unfortunately.

Now, if only one of those two projects was remotely suitable for bus-knitting...