cold head? warm hat

Well, it's that time of year again. My head is cold, and I have been thinking about wool a lot lately. First I became obsessed with the idea of wool batting for my quilts, then I started thinking about more socks, and finally I couldn't get a couple of balls of lovely purple wool from my stash out of my head. I bought two balls of Artful Yarns Shakespeare in lovely variegated purples during a Webs sale, though I had no idea what I wanted to do with them. You know how it is -- you buy irresistible yarn, knowing you'll find the right project eventually.

A couple of people have been knitting the Yarn Harlot's One Row Scarf lately, and I thought about using that. It's a pattern she designed to show off her handspun, and works well when you aren't sure exactly how far your yarn is going to go. But my head is cold, and I remembered a warm, brioche stitch hat by Elizabeth Zimmerman. Aha!My yarn isn't as chunky as the yarn EZ recommends (closer to 4 sts/inch than 2.5), so I cast on twice as many stitches as was recommended, and since I prefer knitting in the round, I looked around on Ravelry until I found someone who had knit it in the round, followed the links, and found this (slightly blurry) YouTube video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I71eyxRrxxQ&feature=re...

After several inches of hat, which went very quickly, I looked back at the pattern and realized I was using what EZ calls Fisherman's Rib, which involves knitting into the stitch below along with the stitch on the needle, rather than her slightly more complicated Prime Rib or brioche stitch, but it's thick and warm and pretty and I think it'll do very nicely. With any luck, it'll be done tomorrow and on my head, with no sewing up to do!

May you find the happy warmth you are seeking in your own stash. Stay warm!
~Phosphorelated