A Quincy on the Head Can be Quite Continental

I loves me the Quincy hat.




So stylish. So asymmetrical. So cool.

This is the first one I made (some time last month, I believe) and it's for me. Yarn is Classic Elite Ariosa, soft as a cloud and I love the color. (It's the same color I used for Nina's Urban Outfitters knock off cabled hat.) I managed to cross it the opposite way intended, but I love it just the same.

The last time I got together with some of my local writer friends, I showed them my Quincy. I can tell when people really do like something I've knit because they instantly ask me to knit them one, too. These are women who I would lie across railroad tracks for, among the few who receive gift knitting from me, usually just at the holidays, but sometimes other times, too. I always cook for them when we get together (everyone brings something, but I cook the entree), it reminds me that I used to love to cook before I had kids who complained about the food on their dinner plates. My friends appreciate that I cook for them, they think whatever I make is delicious, and I don't have to clean up. You can understand why I would lie across the railroad tracks for them.

So this Quincy is for one of those friends.


It's my third. (The second was for a toddler in a DK weight, stitch count adjusted for the size needed) There aren't many patterns I return to over and over. Usually, making something once is enough, but this is one of those rare patterns I will want to do over and over.

The pattern calls for a bulky weight yarn, so I'm using Malibrigo Merino Worsted doubled to achieve gauge of 3.5 sts/in on size 10.5 needles. It ends up exactly the same size, but a bit more dense than the one in Ariosa. I love this color, it's a beautiful cobalt blue that Malibrigo calls "Buscando Azul," which translates to "looking blue" (I like "Buscando Azul" better, don't you?). Two of them requested deep blue hats, so I bought three hanks. I used just over one for the garter strip, so I figure by the time I'm finished with the two hats, I'll have 3/4 of a hank leftover to do something else with. Perhaps a pair of Fetchings.

I took a break from NaNo-ing yesterday afternoon to rake 5 more bags of leaves, bringing the total bag count to approximately 1,873,491 (give or take a million). I followed that up with the Quincy graft, delighting myself by getting it right the first time, no swearing involved. Go me! The first hat took me so long to graft the garter stitch correctly that I couldn't remember what I finally did to get it right. The second one I ended up grafting so that I have a row of stockinette on the inside of the hat, but because it's reverse stockinette (purls) on the outside, it hides well. I finally figured out that you have to work an odd number of rows for the graft to work (the pattern tells you to knit an even number of rows).

I'm working very hard not to do any knitting until my word count goal is reached. I don't think grafting counts.

Yesterday's word count was just under 2000. Not bad. Today I've already done 1000, in just a 30 minute block, thanks to the Write or Die website. Exactly the sort of psychology that works on me. I may just be able to catch up to my overall goal with the help of Dr. Wicked and his dastardly tools. Mwahahahaha.