
Now that I have to give Christmas gifts to both my family and my long-time boyfriend's family, buying them is way too expensive. Solution? Knitting! I decided to start with something small for my sister, and a hat was just the thing. I wanted to use specialty yarn to give it a little extra flare, but living in a small town makes it difficult to find anything worthwhile in the yarn department. Solution? Etsy! After browsing for a couple of days and deciding which type of fiber I wanted, I stumbled upon
http://www.angoraonline.com/, a lovely little shop with 100% angora yarn, and inexpensive enough for making gifts. I bought a 50 yard skein, assuming I would have enough to make a hat, but had a hard time finding a pattern that specified exactly how much yarn I would need. So I decided to create my own! I received the yarn today and it was so yummy that in my excitement it only took me a few hours from start to finish. This pattern uses almost exactly 50 yards of 100% angora yarn, with just enough left for seaming it up. The slight variation in the width of the handspun yarn and the large stitches make the seam completely invisible.

**A note about my use of two needles: I have never used DPN's before, and was planning to try them out on this project, when I discovered that no shop within 90 miles of my desolate town carries any of them! Since I don't have a car and didn't want to ask a friend to drive me 90 miles just for $2.50 DPN's, I improvised. I hope that as a side effect this makes the pattern more accessible to everyone.**
You can find the free pattern at:
http://brittnikayne.blogspot.com/2009/03/kirstins-hat-my-first-free-online.htmlHappy Knitting!
