Homemade Friday: Sebastian's Snowflake Hat

In case anyone was wondering, and I know that you were, my Great Caffeine Afternoon Explosion yesterday resulted in poor sleep and weird dreams wherein I was in California with my mom and somehow met friends who had driven there from Kentucky in four hours.  I also possibly witnessed a murder, or at least a bad fight.

So worth it?

Totally worth it.

The hat I have to show you today is one that I was knitting for my Etsy shop.  However, I made the mistake of trying it on my son to see what size it was, because it was kind of supposed to be for a baby, but ended up much bigger than I expected.  As you can see:

But Sebastian decided he wanted it to be his.  And I couldn't very well say 'no' as I hadn't knit his hat yet this winter.  So Sebastian's Snowflake Hat it became.

The colorwork design came from Vogue Stitchionary Volume Three.  I love books like that, because it allows you to create your own patterns using the designs in the book.  And I like to create my own patterns.  It gives me a bit of pride, you know?

I'm also extremely fond of Barbara Walker's Treasury of Knitting Patterns books, which I've used over and over again.

The yarn is Knitpicks Swish Worsted in Lava Heather and Squirrel Heather.  I knit about an inch and a half of 2x1 ribbing, then a row of contrasting color, then a couple rows of plain stockinette stitch, then started the snowflakes.  After I was finished I knit a plain row, then decreased evenly every row until I had a small number of stitches.  Then I cut my yarn and pulled it through the leftover stitches a few times, tied a knot and weaved it in.

Now, lest you think I am a knitting wizard, as I fear that many of you already do, let me show you the inside of the hat:

Awesome, no?  I'm relatively new to colorwork and haven't yet figured out how to prevent that sort of thing from happening.  But my plan is to pick up stitches around the bottom of the hat and basically just knit another hat, a plain one this time.  That would make the hat reversible and also hide the mess that you see above.

Sebastian approves.  His look of boredom tells me so.