FAL Finish: Brim Extension (AKA Keeping Mam's Ears Warm)

As stated on my current FAL list, the hat I knitted for Mam's Christmas present (find the pattern here) needed a little adjusting as the lazy wind kept creeping up the small gap round her ear lobes and making her chilly!  I had enough yarn left to extend the brim, but didn't want to pull the hat out and start again (all those cables!), so I decided that the best way would be to pick up around the brim (the original cast on edge) and add lengthen the rib on it - upside down, if you like.

Here's how the hat looked at the start of the quarter (it's the one on the right):

And here's how it looked after another 2.5" of rib had been added to the brim:

I made sure to pick up the stitches going from the wrong side, so that the ridge was on the right side of the hat.  This was important because that ridge needed to be hidden in the fold of the brim, rather than pressed against Mam's forehead (which would have made her look like she'd had serious brain surgery when she took it off!):

Unfortunately, and I don't know why I didn't spot it/think of it at the time, my cast off edge (at the bottom of the rib and therefore partway up the hat once the brim was folded up) was too tight, so I had to undo the cast off, join in more yarn (grrrr!) and cast off a bit looser.  Rather than doing a special stretchy cast off, I just cast off on 4mm needles rather than the 3mm I'd been using.  This was enough to provide a bit of give along that edge without it being wavy or too stretchy (and then pinging off Mam's head in a strong wind!).  If you look at the photo below and compare it to the last-but-one photo, you can see that the cast off edge isn't pulling in.

That's another item crossed off my FAL list and makes five finishes so far this quarter!  I've got one more finish to blog about, but I'm unlikely to finish anything else before the end of the quarter as my ME and my shoulder are conspiring to keep me away from sewing and knitting for all but a few minutes a day.


Archie's new bag of food arrived today and he's very excited at the thought of 14kg of biscuits!

When can we open it?  Now?!

It's laid in the middle of the floor (I'm giving my shoulder a rest before moving it any further!) and he keeps going over to sniff round it, just in case there's a hole in the bag...

Don't forget that the end of the quarter will soon be here - the finishes link party opens a fortnight today (31st March at 6am for those of us who will be on BST/IST/GMT+1 by then) so if you haven't already, then it's time to get cracking!  We'll all be posting about how (and what) to link up when the time comes, so don't worry if you're not entirely sure what to do!

Thanks for popping in!