A few weeks back, in a What I’m Knitting post, I showed you my first attempt at knitting the Lallans Hat from the Twist Collective:

I had hoped it would fit my mother, who has always told me her head is larger than average. But her head must have shrunk, because it looked ridiculous on her! So it was off to the frog pond.

I washed the yarn to get the kinks out, then started again, going down a needle size and knitting the small. This time it came out fine:

But, of course, now that I’d shown it to Mum, she wanted one, so I got knitting and made this:

I gave it a curled up stocking stitch brim, because she likes them. I also had to use white contrast yarn because I didn’t think I had enough brown left, but I like it. I’m sure she will too.

Being on a stash busting drive, I decided to make another using the white (which is Bendigo Luxury 10ply) and leftover brown and blue Cascade 220, playing with colourwork patterns instead of the braid and slip stitch zig zag just for variety:

Which came out a little small, but confirmed for me what the problem was with the first Lallans I knit – the green yarn, Mission Falls 1824 wool, relaxes a lot when it’s washed. It wasn’t just my imagination that it grew.

The white hat isn’t overly small. It fits me (obviously) but feels a bit snug. It would be fine on an adult who doesn’t mind a close fit, has a smaller than average head, or a child. It’ll go into my gift/adoption knitwear bag.