I've cheated slightly with this post - just straight copied from what I've put in my projects on Ravelry. (I usually say things slightly differently here from there - dunno why).
Now that I know this has been received and fits, I feel I can write it up here. Didn’t want to before, as it would have spoiled the Valentine surprise!
Some long time ago (2 or more years?), I bought a mixed batch of yarn ridiculously cheap from someone on ebay. In among this batch were two large balls of red DK yarn wound double. They have sat in my stash ever since, waiting for me to have inspiration.
I signed up to the Sending Some Sunshine Valentine’s Day Swap 2013 in January. Then I received the March issue of Simply Knitting (it was still January! I know magazines come out well before the month on the cover, but really!) and saw the Woolly Wormhead pattern for Ruislip and it instantly popped into my head that it would look good in red and that I had red yarn already, so I wouldn’t be breaking my yarn diet, nor would it stretch my finances. All I had to contribute to it was time. So far so good. Remember that little phrase above - ‘wound double’? I thought, ‘I’ll just rewind one of the doubled balls into two balls of single wound yarn, then I can get going on this hat’. Ahem. I started rewinding it in the morning of 2 Feb, thinking I would just do that before going out a bit later in the morning, then I could get going on the hat at our knitting group meeting in the afternoon. I soon realised that ‘just’ rewinding the ball would take more than a few minutes, packed it up and took it with me (with needles too so that I could start it later). I did my DD a favour lunchtime, so fortunately for me, she owed me, so I enlisted her help with the rewinding. It was still taking a long time and two other members of the group got involved with the rewinding too. About half an hour before everyone left, we had got it sorted and I managed to get started on the actual knitting.
The pattern says to use dpns, but (a) I don’t have the right size dpns and (b) I have a tendency to give up trying to join knitting in the round with them and throw them and the knitting across the room. I considered using two circulars, like I have done to make socks, but then thought, why not just use one (interchangeable) circular, then I can use magic loop, which I had not done before, so I would be acquiring a new skill, even if it isn’t a very complex one. DD had said how easy magic loop is and she was right.
Then there’s the problem of what to do when you get to the decreases. It gets too small for the circular needle. I then used an idea devised (possibly not the first person to do this, but the first person who suggested it in my presence) by another member of our knitting group. Keep one end of the correct size on the interchangeable circular and attach one a size smaller end on the other end. Put the two other halves of the pairs on another cable and use the larger size to knit onto (knitting off the smaller one). Hope that makes sense. It would be easier to demonstrate, probably.
Anyway, it worked and the hat got finished. The only other modification that I made was to slightly round the end of the button tab.
I was going to put a heart-shaped button on, which seemed right for a Valentine present, but when I held it up against the hat, it didn’t look right. I rummaged through my button stash and found a red button, which was not only the right size, but matched perfectly. Voila! Sorted. Got it finished, not in time for the suggested deadline for mailing, but in time for it to arrive by 14 Feb. And now it has been received and fits. Yay!
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