FO: Fifth Weekend Hat: Zig Zag to the West

Zig Zag to the West

You may remember that Christine and I took a trip to the Glasgow School of Yarn for a workshop with Stephen West?

My Workshop Swatch

The class focussed on using travelling slip stitches over a two-colour stripe to create a pattern.  It was fun!  It looked great!  And I was determined to use the technique, probably to knit up one of Mr West's own designs.

Wanderer Cap pattern pic and my two-colour version a la Stephen West

However, when Weekend Hats arrived, I spotted this Jared Flood pattern, the Wanderer Cap, and immediately saw the potential for West-ification!

All the hot young designers are playing with this type of colourwork at the moment.  Have you seen Ysolda's Oxidize?  And she even got Stephen West to model it for her : )

I still had loads of grey / green Rowan Cashmerino Aran in the stash from my Kemps lucky-dip bag, and there was most of a ball of midnight blue Berrocco Blackstone Tweed leftover from my favourite Knitspot scarflet - perfect!

Aerial view

I ran into a technical hitch where the zig started to zag. I lost my stripe at the end of each round after turning the corner, because you are not supposed to work the last stitch of even-numbered rows, just shift it and move the marker.  Hmmm... this is what comes of trying to be clever!

I consulted Christine, who suggested adding a stitch and taking it away again later, which sounded like sense but didn't help. I considered embroidering over the "jog".  I tried purling it. But in the end I decided to leave it alone - if anyone asks, this is a special 3D-effect zig zag with a shadow behind it!

Verdict?
Ah - this was such fun to knit!  I find stripes so motivating, and the travelling slip-stitch gives a forward momentum:  you can't help but knit faster.
The fabric has lots of bounce, it's really soft and warm, the colours pop in contrast against each other, and it is so wonderfully geometric.
This is for FL's Christmas:  something a little more conservative this year!
I was sitting next to him as I knitted it, but he was totally oblivious - hee hee hee!

Photographic footnote:
As several other bloggers have mentioned, daylight is at a premium these days.  I had a cunning plan to take some pictures in Old Aberdeen at lunchtime.  I thought my new hat would look fab with the new library as an arty backdrop.

However... it was Graduation Day!  The place was absolutely heaving with people and my nerve failed me.  I thought about pretending to be a tourist and asking someone to take a picture for me, but they might have questioned the requested angle:  "Just my hat and the library please!"

So here is my only over-exposed attempt.

Ah, the trials of being a knitty blogger! ; )