Catterick Completed!

It's finished! After lots of time and concentration, and rather a bit of frogging, I've finished the Catterick hat from Rachel Coopey's new book Toasty. See my review in a previous post. I used baa ram ewe's Titus yarn in the Bramley Baths shade and it I love the colour. I bought two skeins. Half a skein made the hat and with the other skein I knitted a snood using a Toft Alpaca lacy twist snood pattern.

With the left over half skein I'm hoping to knit a pair of gloves - again from a Toft Alpaca pattern I already have. In the January sales I bought a grey duffel coat from Gap which will go perfectly with my knitted Bramley Bath-coloured accessories.

The Catterick hat is so comfy and, importantly, is long enough to cover my ears and keep them warm. The hat can be knitted in three sizes and when I measured my head I found I'd need the small size. It's a generous, stretchy fit - any larger and it wouldn't feel snug.

Coopey's pattern is very delicate and best appreciated from above. It was tricky to knit as it takes no prisoners if you drop a stitch - there are lots of cables and yarn overs. Look closely at my hat to see a few fudges where I went wrong and tried to correct it whilst avoiding pulling out rows of knitting in the round. Thankfully, once I got going, I got the hang of pattern. I have great admiration for Coopey for thinking up the design and all its intricacies.

Titus is a lovely, warm yarn but can split, which I had to look out for. Now I'm back to continuing with Kate Davies' Catkin sweater, also knitted using a different shade of Titus. I'm getting to the point where I'll need to learn new skills where, in the round, I'll have to work out set underarm and panel stitches aside. Wish me luck ...