A break from finishing things

As you might have noticed from my September yarn round up, last month I won a lovely bundle of yarn from Mothy and the Squid: 5 skeins of yarn, totalling 450 g. I was really excited when the parcel arrived, and pretty much like a giddy child when I opened it. All the yarns are lovely, such bright vibrant colours, and there were a couple of bonus gifts: a beautiful sock blank in shades of deep blues and teals, and a couple of stitch markers - appropriately enough, a moth and a squid. There was also another sock blank that I bought to be added to the parcel (oops, it has been on my wish list for ages though), it's a beautiful double sock blank dyed in rainbow colours and I cannot wait to turn it into socks.

'Unloved' yarn. It's not; I love it!

This month has so far been all about finishing things as I have lost track of how many projects I have on the go (this happens occasionally; I have terrible startitis), but last week I let myself have a little break and cast on a hat for my daughter (it was cold on the Monday morning and she has grown out of all her hats from last winter). One of the skeins I had won was a 50g skein of rainbow coloured yarn, which I knew would be perfect for a toddler hat. Looking at the skein I assumed it was variegated, so braced myself for winding a centre-pull ball and working alternate ends from opposite ends of the ball (to reduce pooling), but when I undid the skein I was delighted to discover that it was in fact a self-striping skein, hooray!

Oops, wound it in the wrong direction...

...that's better

So, skein wound into a ball, I used my Apple for Teacher pattern to improvise a little hat (actually not such a little hat, my daughter's head already has a circumference of 19 inches, which is big!) with a rolled brim and an i-cord at the top (the I-cord is 20 rows long, then tied in a knot at the end, should you wish to replicate it). The yarn was perfect for the hat: I used almost the whole skein, and the hat features all six colours (there are six colours, but the initial pink is mostly hidden in the brim). The yarn was lovely to work with, and I'm now really excited about working with the rest of the yarn in my parcel. I probably ought to get back to finishing a few more things first though!

And if you'd like to make your own hat, you can have 50% off my Apple for Teacher hat pattern on Ravelry using the code RAINBOWAPPLES until the end of October 2015 (23.59 GMT, 31/10/2015).