I have been trying to find a woolly hat that is not made of wool, because I am allergic to wool and on my head it’s even worse. I end up with a major rash on the forehead. So acrylic here we come. I quite like fairisle, so that was my first stop. I fancied a pompom, a grey/black/blue colour scheme, and quite chunky because fine small hats look ridiculous on me, or the other way round, I look ridiculous under them. It also needed to be properly warm, because its prime function is to keep me from freezing half to death at the Saturday Night Ice Hockey Match, supporting Basingstoke Bison. It’s really cold there. If they played on an outdoors ice rink we’d be warmer than this! Snowflakes fairisle perhaps? To register my grumpy, shivery disapproval with the ice rink manager? Perhaps a flashing battery-operated icicles garland around the rim?

With all that, I couldn’t find a single hat that made me think, “Yes, that’s the one!”

Then I went to Haskins Garden Centre to have lunch with a friend, and there was a hat (in the men’s department, so quite chunky) in grey and green, but no fairisle. I tried it on and it looked great. Well, better than most hats look on me… So what to do? Customise!

Instead of ready-made snowflake fairisle, I crocheted a snowflake myself and stitched it on the front side of the hat. I chose a pale grey because although any self-respecting snowflake should be white, I thought the contrast would be too much. Also, white is not my colour, especially this close to my face. The green and grey bring out the green in my eyes (and it’s also the title of one of New Model Army’s songs, always a bonus) but the white would make my face look pink, not in a good way.

Here is a picture of my hat on the Christmas tree (everything gets pictured on the Christmas tree at this time of year) and modelled on my rabbit Penelope, who’s a much prettier model than me.

After looking for my new hat for 10 minutes to share the pictures, I realised that it had been on my head the whole time I was writing the post, that’s how comfortable it is! I don’t usually write with a hat on my head but I was on my way from the bedroom to the garden and I stopped in the living room to write a post while Mr. Flora’s Patch was having a Sunday afternoon nap on the settee… Now I am going to wake him up, wake Penelope up as well, and we’re off to deadhead some Hydrangeas!

Yarn: DMC Petra, 100% cotton, col 5415, hook 2.5cm

PS: I can’t resist posting a picture of our garden companion, waiting for us to dig up some stuff to reveal an endless supply of goodies…