Grace's Corner: Brie's Hat

February 2, 2006

I just finished my first knitted hat. Hoooraaayyy!! I wanted to give it to Brie for Christmas. I bought this beautiful rainbow wool roving at the NH Fiber Tour last fall. The moment I saw it, I had to have it. Until that moment I had only worked with natural color fibers. The roving was so pretty it inspired me to make a hat for Brie to replace the one her sister knitted for her a few Christmases ago. It was brightly colored in shades of orange and yellow, the colors of about 80% of Brie’s wardrobe for years.

It was a little too big, with a turned up brim, and perfect for Brie. Well, she lost that beloved hat at school and she felt so bad about it she couldn’t tell Maryka for months. When she finally did, Maryka immediately offered to knit her another one. She said she had more of that same yarn. A thorough search did not unearth the yarn. So – when I saw the rainbow roving, it seemed like the perfect thing to make Brie a new hat. It was my first attempt at spinning dyed fiber. It was sticky, and wanted to spin fat and thin, fat and thin. When I tried to make the fat bits thinner, it would break. I finally got the knack of it when I was almost finished. (!!!!) Then it suddenly occurred to me that I would have to ply it. How in the world would I ply it and match the colors?? I finally figured it out – I spun from one end of the rainbow to the other end, then started with a new spool and spun the same color sequence again. When I plied the two, the colors matched well enough. Where one color blended into another I got some very pretty combinations of many different shades. It was fun to spin and to ply and to knit. I knitted the first hat but wasn’t satisfied with the results, so I unraveled it and did it over. This time I’m very happy with how it turned out.