Is it a snail?

The Christmas push is finally over, so I can start putting up pictures of what I made for everyone in my family (whether they wanted it our not). This spiral hat was a fun and quick knit. The pattern is from Elizabeth Zimmerman's The Opinionated Knitter and can be done in a night, or a day or two if you are a beginner. This hat can turn out looking really different depending on what you do, so if you want it to look like the pictures here, here's what to do:

• Use fat yarn. EZ calls for something that is no longer manufactured, so I tried holding two strands of Manos del Uruguay together, which worked just fine.
• Do the backwards loop increase, like she says. I tried a different increase for the first hat I made and it looked cool, but not at all like the picture.
• Sew the edges of the garter-stitch portion together. The pattern is a little vague on this point, but it'll look odd if you don't.

I actually found this pattern first on google books, because the portion of the book they were displaying for free included it. This doesn't seem to work anymore, but The Opinionated Knitter is terrific - definitely worth buying.



And here's my grandma looking pleased with her version (or possibly being held up):