Lanolin Hat!

I am so glad that you liked my idea to change up Eye Candy Fridays. I look forward to seeing the things that other people love about where they live. I've always been a fan of the tour books that take you off the beaten path and that's kind of how I see this. It'll be less of the postcard shots and famous places and more charming or interesting little details. Maybe I'll put up a list of other blogs that are participating in the bloggy travelogue.

Speaking of stuff I posted last week - looking back I realized that I didn't post any knitting or fiber at all last week. No fiber on my fiber blog. That's so weird because I finished 2007 in a knitty frenzy and most of it came out exactly as I planned so I have a bunch of stuff to share.
This hat took about a day to complete. It's so nice to sprinkle in a few super quick projects among the bigger ones. Progress feels good.

The pattern I used is called Cap Karma and I found it via the Brooklyn Tweed blog. This was such a good thing since Jared had a nice modification worked out for the decreases which I used. I really liked this pattern. It was simple and quick but the effect is nice. I do think that if/when I make it again I'll use a solid or semi-solid yarn which will show off the pattern better.

This hat was for Hubbo but he's not nearly as photogenic as DQ (she really rocks the tween 'tude) so I asked her to model the hat for you.

The yarn is Morning Myst from Kiparoo Farm and it's a wool/mohair blend. The color is lovely and the mohair didn't bother me as much as it usually does but the real story here was the lanolin. I've never worked with a yarn that was so full of lanolin before. It wasn't a bad experience but it was definitely different. The yarn felt solid and after working with it for a while my fingers were shiny from the lanolin coating. I was actually kind of fascinated by it.

The small picture above (the first one in this post) shows the fabric before I washed it out and I think that you can kind of see the effect of the lanolin. The yarn looks a little harsh. One it was washed the mohair started fuzzing a bit and the fabric started to look softer. I think that there's still quite a bit of lanolin in there though but I'm not sure what the best soap is for removing it. Any suggestions?