On this KNITmas eve I went to hang out with my knitting buddies at Charlotte Yarn! And of course got me a "knit eve" present! ;op Santa Claus was good to me this year! Checking my mailbox during the holiday had lots of goodies! My aunt in WI sent me some Xmas moola (I don't get to see that denomination often LOL); and one of my friends, Wendy, who is also in my fav knit group gave me a gift certificate to my fav LYS!

So the owner of Charlotte Yarn, Remi (love her!) winded up my yarn "knit eve" present! :op.
Look at that jumbo winder!!It was a little busy in the shop, plus I wanted to try out that fabulous winder myself, so I took a whirl at it. You gotta have some strong upper arm muscles and stamina for this winder! My goodness!

All that hard work produced these beautiful yarn cakes! The pic here does not do the colors any justice at all! I will definitely be doing a proper yarn p0rn session for it soon and let you know what I am cooking up next ;o)
You may have noticed I was wearing my fetchings in the pic above to help me with all that winding (my goodness!). They do help knock off the chill every now and then, since the high here is about 55 degrees for Christmas! :oD I had to also show my jingle bell rings! Aren't they just festive! :oD

During this holiday season I was reading over at Knitting Contessa's blog where she did her 25 Days of Knitting Contrisstmas (great interviews!) and she made a VERY valid point about this time of year. Nailing it on the head in this post (definitely check it out!) about that no matter what you celebrate - it is about LOVE. Period!!

A lot of people get their panties all in a bunch because of the whole "Merry Christmas" vs "Happy Holidays" greeting. Honestly, if someone wants to wish me well......I will take that any day!

Realistically, we do not live in a homogeneous society and we all do not celebrate the same things (ie. Hannakauh, Kwanzaa, etc). So I can respect your beliefs, just as much as I hope you would respect mine. No big deal, but some folks really get all twisted up about that!
Please remember that it is about LOVE

Alright enough of that! I have a finished object! WHOA!! Lets not even mention how I have not shown one F.O. or a WIP (work in progress for my non-knitter readers ;op) for the entire month of December! I've just been successfully distracting you all with fun knitterly posts! :oD

And lets not also mention how I started this waaaaay back in July and decided to finally focus on finishing it this KNITmas Eve morning!!

See I have proof that I still knit!! :oD Even though I barely did this month.This hat is the Irish Hiking and served as a two-fold learning opportunity for me.

At the time I had never done a hat before (prior to my last month baby making machine marathon) and I wanted to learn how to cable (prior to me doing my caplet). So I got the bright idea in doing this pattern because my BeFF, Patrice, had just finished it. This project lead up to the two successful aforementioned projects.

Well how about I went on this fabulous yarnsploration back in October and didn't realize that the person I spent all day with designed this hat herself!! I tell ya it is a small knit world!
Nik has this pattern design on her site for free.

I liked this pattern because it was very simple and gave great instructions!
I used the remaining of my Cascade 220 from my Lizard Ridge afghan in color #8886. So this hat was less then $7. So while I was enjoying my KNITmas Eve in the shop I took a quick pic with it on me. It was originally intended as a charity knit for the working homeless in New Orleans. But I am not all that satisfied with it. The ribbed brim should have been done in a smaller size (I keep forgetting that) in a US 6, but I knitted up the entire hat in a US8. So it is too loose for my liking around the edge.

Of course I magic looped the hat (I am allergic to DPNs Haha) and here is a closer view of the stitch work while still in progress.
The pictures below show better the true color of the hat. It is very hard trying to photograph purple!
It is a really deep hat and would be ideal for a bigger/man head. I modified the pattern by not knitting the entire ribbed band since I knew I was working with a limited amount of leftover yarn, and plus I just don't like that big ole fold. Haha!

I had a little trouble while I was decreasing and got confused with when to SSK in the beginning of each round and knit my knits/purl my purls while decreasing, but I believe it was just user error (moi!). I just went with it! LOL

Because I did not lengthen my cord to ML in time for the crown shaping I ended up stretching out my stitches. It was exactly at this point I lost my steam and did not want to rip back to fix it! LOLSo I finally resolved that it would be jacked up and to just keep going and finish it up already. The crown came out decent As I mentioned already I had "planned" on doing this hat as a charity knit, but now have decided to go ahead and keep it for myself by felting it, which it will shrink it down some and hide the holes. I have other yarn already slated for my charity hats (that are looong overdue) that was gifted to me by my Red Swaparooni pal.

So overall, mission was accomplished! I learned how to do my very 1st "adult" hat and cable!
I will be doing this pattern again for at least one of my other charity hats. Great quick knit if you don't let it go in the "knit avoidance bin" like I did! LOL