Cheating at knitting

Quiz time:

When Pete saw this yarn on the kitchen counter a couple of weeks ago,

he said

a/ "For some reason I'm suddenly craving borscht."

b/ "You're storing yarn in here now?"

c/ "Hey, when did you get this?  It's such a great colour!"

d/ "So, now that you have enough yarn to insulate the garage, what days do you have free for me to help out with that?"

If you said c/, I hope you are as surprised as I was.  I was really expecting to hear something more sensible like, "I thought you said you were done buying yarn" uttered in stern and disapproving tones (even though I never said that and can't imagine doing so in future.)

As it happens, the yarn wasn't mine.  I had to tell him that Jill had picked it out and it was on my counter instead of hers because I was going to start a hat for her.

Cheating

Starting somebody else's hat sounds a bit like kicking a golf ball into the hole instead of putting it in, but to me it seems eminently logical.

See, last time Jill and I were in a yarn store together, she told me she hopes someday to make herself a hat.  She's been knitting approximately 6.2 zillion scarves for other people since learning to knit this fall and it's likely to be a lot colder here before it gets warmer again, so I think this is a very fair wish.  She should totally take the time out to make herself a hat.  She saw that skein of purple Malabrigo worsted and wished she could use that for the job and I encouraged her to go for it. 

Meanwhile, I've been hoping to solve the problem of the perfect hat shape on the perfect hat band stitch.  Much like somebody who is knitting a small army of scarves wouldn't have time for a hat, I don't have time to make all of the hat parts I'm obsessing over.  Well, I have time to make the parts, I just hate not having them turn into something productive when I'm done said parts.

So after Jill decided to go for the skein of yarn, I encouraged her to buy a circular needle to go with it.

Some time after Pete spotted the skein on the counter, I took it down to the ball winder and caked it.  And then because I knew the weather was going to turn really cold over the weekend (and hoo boy, it did), I spent Friday night swatching and casting on and knitting the band of Jill's hat.

The colour is too variegated to show off the stitch I chose but I don't care and I hope she doesn't either.  It's meant to be functional, with decorative being a bonus.

I also don't care that the colours seem to be at the start of a spiral pooling effect; the only way to avoid that sort of thing is with a mix-it-up stitch, and Jill would prefer just to knit at this stage.  Plus, she loves this yarn so it will automatically be lovely no matter what.  I'm sure the spiral will make for a great design feature.

Anyway: it's out of my house now and over at Jill's being knit between scarves.  I'll keep you posted on how our tag-team knitting cheat goes.

As for me, I have moved on to knitting my own new hat... but more on all of those adventures tomorrow!  (yep... it's another one of those projects.)  In the meantime I hope you have a wonderful Monday with no freezing in it.  Because where I am, it's just so much brrrrrrr.