Dulaan #1 & 2

Here are XRK's first (unless y'all are holding out on me!) hats for the Dulaan Project! Here are just the many things that I love about these hats:

1. They are for charity, and with knitting being the single most indulgent thing I do, a little Lenten service to others eases the Catholic guilt.

2. They are both red and pink, so they are another entry for Project Spectrum.

3. These were knitted from stash yarn and leftovers. I have discovered that Dulaan hats are the perfect project for these little balls of leftovers and for one-off skeins. See Project Notes for details.

4. They are totally mindless projects, easy for basketball knitting.

5. The models, of course.

Project Notes:
Yarn: Yarn-not-to-be-named in Cranberry. Yet another reason to love this project, because this yarn was, let's say, ill-gotten. You may recognize this super-warm, soft yarn from a previous project. When I ordered the yarn this fall for that project, it took forever to arrive. When I called to inquire, it seems that said yarn shipper did not have my new address, and sent the original package to Richmond. When I called to complain, we discovered this, and the nice folks sent me another package of 7 skeins of yarn. The lovely person on the phone said that likely the yarn would be returned to them, rather than forwarded along to me. I guess I forgot to ask what to do if I did indeed receive the yarn. Well...

Here I am with seven skeins of this lovely yarn. I could simply thank the yarn gods for blessing me with free yarn, or appreciate the returns of supporting a company with excellent customer service, but oh, the guilt!

So this yarn has been earmarked for charity knits, and it truly is perfect for Dulaan knitting, as it is thick and warm.

The helmet hat is knitted with a single strand of said ill-gotten, guilt-inducing yarn, and the ribbed brim uses it, as well as two different shades of pink held along. I think the hot pink was KnitPicks merino style, and the light pink is the final vestiges of that Patons Classic Merino I complained about last week. Look at the difference in colors! It has me looking at my stash and oddballs in a whole new light. It's a shame that you can't see how lovely and variagated the red and hot pink look, but wow!

I used US9s for both hats, and I will say that I am hoping that the nice Mongolian person who gets the helmet uses it as a liner under another, more substantial hat, but the brimmed hat is warm and thick all on its own.

The helmet hat was based on a Blue Sky Alpaca Free Pattern that called for a bulky yarn and size 13s or something. As I never jumped on the bulky-yarn-thick-needles bandwagon, I had neither stash-reduction candidates nor appropriate needles. The roll brim hat was a total improvisation.