I did it!

On New Year's Day, I started a hat because working with the cotton for the baby sweater was driving me bonkers. Oh, how I love Malabrigo yarns- gorgeous colorways, SUPER soft, and comes in several different weights. It's wonderful stuff. I decided to make the Thorpe hat (Ravelry link) with some Malabrigo Chunky in the Purple Mystery colorway. It's knit from the top down, which is a bit different than most hat patterns, so getting it started was a bit of an adventure. Once I got through the first few increases, the hat flew off the needles and was finished rather quickly.

Well, almost.

See, to finish the hat, I needed to do a crochet border. Previous attempts at crochet have resulted in me strangling my crochet hooks with the yarn and being extremely frustrated that I just couldn't figure it out. I knew the hat just wouldn't look complete without the border, so I pulled up You Tube and watched a couple of videos of the crochet stitch I needed to perform.

After a couple of viewings, I pulled out a swatch and started working. Somehow, my hands figured it out and I was working the half double crochet on the swatch. When I picked up the hat tonight to attempt to finish the actual project, I somehow remembered what I needed to do and managed to not put too much tension on the yarn!

I still need to weave in a few ends, add the braids (and possibly a tassel if I feel like it), but the hard part is over and I'm really happy with how it turned out. Keep an eye out here for photos of the finished hat!