Chunky Cable Hat

I was recently gifted a 6-month subscription to the Irish Baby Knits "yarn of the month" club. I received my first yarn on Friday - Riddermark Merino, a chunky 100% wool. The suggested needle size is US11-15 and I got approximately 90 yards. The colorway is called "Campbell" and it's a lovely mix of gold/bronze/copper/silver/white and I love it. It is not my usual style but it is beautiful. I was so taken by it, in fact, that I had to make something RIGHT AWAY. I did a little swatch, figured I was getting about 3sts/inch on sz 9 Clover Takumi DPNs (I am officially in LOVE with these needles! Brittany Birches have *nothing* on these!), and cast on.

I'm not completely satisfied with it - I'm going to have to rip at least half of the hat out - but it's a good start. If I had done a little Googling I'm sure I could have found an existing pattern and not had to mess around making something up, but I was lazy so there you have it. I was a bit concerned about running out of yarn also. After finishing this hat, I have enough yarn left for three more full rows by my count, and the hat is ever so slightly too short and ever so slightly too tight. I could solve this by only cabling every OTHER rib (it's worked in 4x1 rib with a cable every 7th row), but unfortunately I have an odd number of ribs (11) so this would look funny. I think I'm going to rip back a bit and just add in two more rows before I start the crown decreases and hope that that works. I think the "too tight" would be fixed if it were just a smidge longer. Another option is to rip and re-work on sz 10s or 10.5s, and ANOTHER option would be to try it with 10 ribs and cable every other row (might still be too tight) or 12 ribs (I think I would run out of yarn). I think the 10.5's would make the fabric too loose, and I don't have sz 10's, so we'll see. I don't think I have any desire to work this yarn and these cables on Denise Interchangeables...

My other quandary unfortunately is the striping. I love, love, love the way it stripes for the bulk of the hat but after I did the first set of crown decreases I hit the magic row size and the colors started piling up on themselves. Then after the next set of decreases, the colors started migrating the other direction. Oh, well.

I'll probably mess around with it a bit more until I have something I'm really satisfied with but overall I am quite pleased with it. I even worked cables and decreases in the dark (car ride up to Stevens Pass) so I am impressed with myself ;)

A nice bonus is that the hat totally matches my new ski jacket. (Nevermind the fact that I never wear a hat and my ski jacket at the same time.. it still makes me happy.)

This yarn is delicious. It's wonderfully soft, very firm and doesn't get fuzzy after being ripped out a couple dozen times (only about four, really, but it *seemed* like a lot!). It is soft and squishy and just luscious, and the colorway is beautiful as always. There were tiny bits of veggie matter every so often but nothing too unusual for a yarn like this - I've had to pull more junk out of Noro Kureyon before. DEFINITELY a good yarn for a nice cosy sweater and soft enough for baby stuff, too.

Thanks, Rachel!!