Stash Diving

You may have too much yarn when...

...you overlook (for several years) a very nice yarn like Lorna's Laces Shepherd Worsted. Purchased in a kit for a baby's sweater. We won't mention how old the baby is now. In any case, two such nice skeins of yarn should be put to good use, so how about a crocheted cap?

With a size "I" hook I chained 66 and joined them with a slip stitch. Crocheted a couple of rounds of hdc over those 66 stitches, joining each round with a slip stitch and chaining 2 to start the next round. After two rounds I started with dc stitches, still working the same number of stitches and joining each round with a slip stitch. Because I was adding a separate turned up cuff, I did the first few rounds in just plain dc, but when the hat was about 2" I started the fpdc (front post double crochet) ridges -- there's 6 of them, so work *10 dc, l fpdc, around. Frankly, I'm not sure it made much difference (leaving the bottom layer nice and flat), so you could work *10 dc, 1 fpdc around right after the initial 2 hdc rounds.

Why start at the bottom and work your way up the hat you may ask? Well, crocheters choice, I guess, but I find that when working the usual way of starting at the top of the hat and working successively larger rounds outward I have lots of trouble getting just the right fit -- snug, but not too tight. Working from the bottom up I can make sure that I have the fit I want before I invest a lot of time and effort. In any event, I worked even until the body of the hat was 4" from the beginning.

Now the fun part -- the hat gets smaller and smaller as you decrease for the crown. I decided on a decrease rate of 6 stitches per round and I decreased on each round. Since I very happily had a hat with six segments, I simply decreased 1 stitch from each segment, until I finally had a round with only 12 stitches. I stopped doing the fpdc ridge stitches for the next round, because it was making my head hurt to try to figure out how to do a decrease and make it a fpdc, but perhaps you are more clever than I. Pull your yarn through that last stitch, then snug up the little hole on the top by running the tail end through those last stitches on the inside of the hat.

For the contrast cuff, I started from the wrong side of the hat, since it will be turned to the outside when done. Working into the original beginning chain, work sc, skip 1 chain, *(sc, ch2, sc) in next chain space, skip 2 chains**. Continue around, working from * to ** and end [skip 1 chain, sc ch 2 and join with slip stitch to beginning sc]. Round 2: Ch 1 (counts as first sc), *(sc, ch 2, sc) in chain 2 space of previous row**, and repeat from * to ** around -- end with sc, ch2, slip stitch to beginning ch 1. I worked the contrast cuff for 2 1/2" , but 3" would probably look good too.

So, a simple little cap from some long forgotten yarn -- not bad, eh? There's still some yarn left though. Wonder if I can squeeze a little "Could It Be Any Easier" neck cozy from the rest?