Knitting: Flat Cap for Grandpa

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Knitting: Flat cap

I’m taking a break from packing my husband and son up for a camping trip to blog about this amazing hat.

My grandpa turns 80 the day before Easter, so my aunt is throwing him a party the week before. That means tomorrow! Unfortunately, we have a camping trip with our cub scout pack planned for the same weekend, so half my little family will be missing it. I’d be disowned if I did, so despite the weather being BEAUTIFUL and my body practically ACHING to get out more, I’m a little happy to get to spend some time with my extended family.

I spent about 3 hours, last night, baking at least 13 dozen pan de polvo and I still have a chunk of dough in my fridge. It’s a recipe he gave me himself, so I felt like it was a nice tribute. I made the cookies for the whole party, so it’s only fitting to have something just for him, right?

Enter Morgan by Anne Kuo Lukito, from the Fall 2008 Knitty. A few weeks ago, my grandpa was wearing a flat cap and my husband said he looked “really cool” in it, so I thought this would be a great present! Did I mention I didn’t think of this until last Sunday? Yeeeeahhh!

I immediately went into panic mode. What yarn will I use?! What color?! What size?! Since it was Sunday, the yarn shop where I could get the actual yarn this pattern calls for was closed. AND it would be closed on Monday, too! MORE PANIC!

What’s a girl to do?! I took a trip to Jo-Ann. I had browsed the completed projects on Ravelry for at least an hour, looking at alternative yarns and saw Lion Brand’s Wool-Ease mentioned a few times. I liked that it’d be an easy-care yarn, so I checked out the colors at the store and brought home a ball of their “blue heather.”

I’m gonna be honest, guys: I didn’t swatch. I KNOW. It could break my project if my gauge were off! I had no time to spare, so I SHOULD have swatched, but I’m lucky I didn’t because I might have ran out of yarn. I used almost the entire ball!

Knitting: flat cap, side

I am SO happy with this. The hat is made in ONE PIECE. ONE. You start at the center of the top and make some intense increases to form a circle. I say intense because they’re spaced differently every single round, so you can’t see any increase lines. Genius! Once the circle is big enough, you start working short rows to turn the circle into more of an oval. After that is a ridge row, then more short rows, then you cut the yarn, pick it up somewhere else, and work more short rows, say a prayer, throw some fairy dust, work more short rows, ribbing, binding off, sewing, blocking, more sewing, and one last block, a final wave of your wand, and oh yeah, a few more sewing stitches. IT’S A HAT AND IT’s FUCKING BEAUTIFUL.

I started Sunday afternoon, at my mother in law’s house. I worked it on the way home, then put my kids to bed, knit for 4 hours straight while watching a Bates Motel marathon, fell asleep TOO late, woke up 6 hours later, got my kids ready for school, sent them off, knit the whole day. I was done that evening and then the epic finishing began. It was actually FUN, guys. I wholeheartedly recommend the pattern.

Knit flat cap profile

Pattern: Morgan by Anne Kuo Lukito, from the Fall 2008 Knitty
Yarn: one ball of Lion Brand Wool-Ease in “blue heather”
Needle: one 4mm (US 6) 40″ circular. I used the magic loop method. It wasn’t too difficult to adapt from the two-circulars pattern.

Have you ever gone crazy for a project that you felt you HAD to complete RIGHT AWAY? I really wanted to make sure this got done and looked great, so I did things real quick. I’m lucky I didn’t encounter (many) snags. I did have to re-stitch the bottom hem, but it looked ridic and now it’s perfect, so it was worth it! Tell me about your epic knitting/crochet marathons.

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