Digging through the stash looking for potential yarn to make hats for Mum for Christmas, I found some Cleckheaton Natural Cotton. I remember buying this back in 2008 just because it was eco and local. Australian Country Spinners were being approachable and interactive on Ravelry and that worked as an extra nudge to support a local manufacturer.

Not that the yarn isn’t good. It’s lovely. Trouble is, it’s 4ply (fingering) and cotton, and I’ve kind of learned my lesson that I dislike knitting with 4ply and/or cotton and don’t tend to wear knitted items in summer. So it languished in the bottom of the stash until my hat yarn searching brought it out again.

It turns out it does make lovely yarn for crochet hats.

I have three shades of the yarn. Cream, which I used in the hat above, coffee, which I used to add a line around the brim, and a barber-pole cream and coffee, which I used for the hat below.

I’m onto a third hat now, using the coffee yarn. I have enough of this yarn to make six hats. I’m telling myself that I’ll make one in each shade for Mum & I. My hat crocheting interest may not last that long, but it is easy, and good hot weather crafting. Not that it’s been all that hot this summer.

(Also, I’m having second thoughts about Summer Solstice. I haven’t picked it up in weeks. My first impressions were that the yarn was scratchier to knit than it felt in the hanks, and the pattern seemed as if it should have been simpler. I’m more inclined to give the pattern a second chance and relegate the yarn to a woven floor rug project. This is becoming quite common and the weaving stash is getting ever bigger as I try and reject yarns in the knitting stash. Trouble is, that fills the weaving to-do list with rejected yarn projects. I should just have a de-stash and be done with it.)