At the beginnign of February, I published my first pattern of the year : Azulejos, a 3-colours stranded-colourwork hat. It took me nearly 18 months between the first sticthes and the reveal of the pattern, which is quite a long time for such a small project, but this pattern had twists and turns…
April 2018, The Channe Thread yarn festival : I fell for 1 skein and 2 mini-skeins of The little GRey Sheep Hampshire 4ply. When I bought them, I was already thinking about a stranded-colourwork hat.
September 2018 : I drew my first attempts of colourwork charts, inspired by the painted tiles I’ve admired in Portugal and Spain. I hadn’t knitted the hat yet, but I already had its future name…
As soon as I had my mind set on a colourwork chart, I put my skeins in balls and begun to knit, improvising the crown of the hat as I went. By the end of September, I was taking the finished hat with me on a long week-end with friends, hoping to take pictures of it…
Coming home from that week-end away, I had no pictures of it, no notes about its construction besides the base chart and I had lost my hat ! I searched for it everywhere, even calling the rental we had stayed, but I couldn’t find it anywhere !
I was so disappointed, especially because I didn’t have enough yarn left to knit it again… Trying to move on, I decided to start a new project an wait until I could buy more yarn to make it again.
After a few month (April 2019), I found my way back to Emma and The little Grey Sheep booth at The Channel Thread yarn festival. There, I bought yarn to make 2 new samples of my idea : one with the same colours as my first sample for myself (in blue tones), the other for one of my daughter (pink-purple tones).
A few months passed by before I got to work again on this pattern idea. At the end of August, I put the first combo (the same as my first lost sample, size M) on my needles, and very soon after that, I begun the second hat (smaller, Size S) and I even ordered enough yarn to make a bigger 3rd one (green tones, Size L). This time, I take notes and save all my charts…
While I was knitting them, I imagined the pictures of all 3 to introduce the pattern, and close-up pictures of the blue one for details…
The first cold days arrived, and 2 out of 3 hats found their way to my daughters’ heads… Quickly, Capucine lost her’s : the blue one, the one I really wanted to photograph…
Gathering all the remains of my first 2 blue samples (the Ast lost in 2018, the 2nd lost in 2019), I was able to knit a 3rd blue one…
All Autumn pass by, I don’t find time to take the pictures and Madeleine lost her pink hat too… Again, it’s impossible to find it : it’s not at home, nor at school, not in the car nor in the school bus… I’m beginning to think there is something going on around those hats and I’m a bit disheartened !
But I continue to work slowly on the pattern… Early January (of the year), I finally take pictures of the 2 sample hats I have left. At the same time, I begin the test knit and decide that the pattern will be published on February 1st.
You will never guess what appear before my eyes a few days before I introduce the pattern to you… The very first sample of the hat ! The one lost in 2018 himself ! On the head of a man I cross almost every day in our village… Can you imagine it
I’m glad to see it well worn and appreciated (even though I didn’t offer it to him), but at the same time I’m having mixed feelings… If I hadn’t lost it (or if I had found it sooner), I could have published that pattern at least one year sooner…
Maybe I should have posted wanted notices all around the village for my hat… Is it something people do ?
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