Yarn Progress

Rowan was my model here. Not by my choice.

After I completed my first minion hat, I read an article about the value of making swatches with your yarn. That is, looking at the gauge instructions and knowing how to make that work with your own natural gauge.   You have no idea how much I wish I would have read this BEFORE I did the minion hat, because, honestly, it would have saved me a lot of time.

I don't tend to practice or do any prep before I start on a project. I just dive right in and hope that things turn out for the best. They almost always do not turn out for the best . . . at least, not on the first (sometimes up to the tenth) try. I have to start and restart and restart until things look the way I want them to. And the reason I have to do this usually deals with gauge and counting. The thing is, it seems I'm not alone in this. A lot of people dive into projects without practicing or preparing for them first. A lot of us end up with strangely shaped, wonky results. Of course, we don't have to.

So, in trying to learn my lesson, I started practicing on the hat I'm going to make for my nephew. It's going to be a simple beanie hat with a fake yarn beard attached to it. I had to pause on my supergoth handwarmers because the yarn is so black and so delicate that I need tons of sunlight to even work on it. With some time to kill, I decided to do prep work for the beard hat.

I reviewed the pattern and watched a couple of instructional videos. Most importantly, I did a practice beard. The picture above is said beard, resting on the back of Rowancat. I didn't mean for the beard to be on her, but she kept insisting on sitting right where I needed her not to be. Finally I just gave up, rested the beard on her back, and snapped my pic.

What did I learn? The technique is really easy and it works very fast. Again, because I'll be using a darker yarn (probably) I should make sure to do this when I have more visibility. I'm also not happy with the mouth. I left three spaces as indicated by the video I watched, but I don't think that's adequate. What good is a beard hat unless you can stick your tongue out?

Beyond the project, this has been a good lesson in the value of preparation. I have a better understanding of the project as a whole and far more confidence about my ability to make it happen. We may be on a trend of less wonkfested looking things.