An Overdue Resolution

Almost exactly two years ago, a mom in my local parent group commissioned a custom knit hat from me. She sent me a handful of Googled pics of what she had in mind, but I wanted to design something original and hopefully, eventually, publish a pattern, so I used her pictures for inspiration rather than to inform a Ravelry search of existing patterns.

She wanted it to be chunky, cabled, and billed. I had fun coming up with something beautifully geometric, texturally rich, and of course, snug and cozy. The bill was an especially exciting challenge as I had never knit a billed hat before and I had to tackle some pretty unfamiliar techniques to get the shape and firmness just right.

Rocking the original commissioned hat in 2014

It took me all of three days to knit that hat and note down the details of what I'd done, and another day or so to flesh out a proper pattern. Shortly after I sold it to her, I realized I would need better procedural photos to include with the pattern, so I started knitting a second hat - the pictures my husband took while I was knitting that extra hat became my smocking tutorial post. I finished the main body of the hat in a day, and set it aside to do the bill and button band later.

Later never came.

By that time, I had found out I was pregnant with Cyrus, I was also working like crazy on getting the Silicon Forest pattern polished and published. More new projects called, my belly expanded, and the 90% finished hat pattern project just sat and sat and sat. And then, naturally, I had the baby, and for quite some time, anything I wanted to do in my precious spare time had to be excruciatingly prioritized.

I knit fewer than two dozen items in 2015 and most of them were for that craft fair at church.

So when 2016 took over, I didn't necessarily resolve to do anything. But I took a good look at what I had left unresolved for too long. And I decided to stop making excuses for the ones that I had no honest reason for ignoring. Like this hat. All in all it took me just over two hours to knit the bill, take the pictures I needed, proof the pattern, and fill out all the listing information to sell it on Ravelry and Craftsy.

Accomplished adult couch selfie!

And now I have TWO patterns for sale. Ha. I'm so legit.

PS: I didn't knit the button band. I didn't need a picture of that. I'll get to it... later...