The very small world of knit hat design

I finished a hat last night!  And I can't show you (yet), because I made it with my new club yarn from Twisted Fiber Art and I don't want to spoil the surprise for anybody who didn't get theirs in the mail crazy early like I did.

For a placeholder, let's have a look at the progress on the second half of my pair of lace socks:

And now back to the hat.

I'm very pleased with the way it came out - the yarn is stretchy and floppy but with plenty of body to hold its shape, I was able to make the whole hat and get through all the colours before running out and in fact have enough left to knit a little bow trim if I want, and the pattern itself was super easy and fun to knit.

It was also super easy to design - I spent maybe two hours tops on the computer Saturday night making a series of lace charts and typing up the text to match, and then plugging it all into my pattern format.  Sunday, I got knitting.  I didn't have to do a gauge swatch because I was pretty sure what would work just by looking.  Admittedly, I adapted the pattern as I knit, but revising it in on paper will be nothing.  Piece. of. cake.

And: I love how it looks, both on and off my head.

Yay!

Fast forward to this morning when I read the day's post at Whip Up.  (love that blog - check it out if you don't know it already.)  The title: What a small world.  And I agree!  The story is a profile of designer Robin Ulrich, and the very first photo is of a really beautiful hat... which incorporates the same shape and exactly the same stitches as the one I just finished.

And yet: they look completely different.

(hers is prettier though.)

Thankfully I wasn't planning to offer my design - the yardage is too tight to make it commercially viable on this yarn base, and I'd tweak it a bit more in another yarn - but I did laugh when I realized we'd taken the same raw material for our hats.  Happens with fiction all the time too... it's like the same ideas are floating around in the ether at any given time and artists just pluck them down and work some magic.

The bottom line though is that I finished my hat. and ran in all the ends right away which is a good sign I hope for finishing all the other unfinished projects in my basket.  Or maybe just a good sign that I can now get going on my matchy cowl (more likely, since I just this minute wound that yarn into a cake.)  Either way, wish me luck, and have a great day yourself!