My Stonecoast Hat

I knitted this hat while I was at my grad school residency:

I wanted something small and unobtrusive to work on in the evenings during the readings, so I left my sweater at home and finally started this hat I've been wanting to knit for a good six years.

It's the Center Square hat from the winter 2006 issue of Knitty and I used Quince & Co. lark yarn in delft and bark.

The hat kind of mirrors my experience at the residency (and forgive me for taking a metaphor to tortuous ends, but that's what we writers do): it starts out all enthusiastic and openminded, weaving in different strands to make a pleasing pattern, but it falters near the top (at exactly the moment I falter in my experience); I dodn't have the right needles to finish (size 11 double-pointeds; I even drive out into a snowstorm in search of a set, only to find extra long, glitter-filled acrylic ones that I cannot bring myself to buy). After stalling out, and considering giving up, I buck up and make it work--I put an extra-long cable on my circular needles and use what I believe is called the magic-loop method to finish. I am at this point skeptical, no longer starry-eyed but willing to give it a chance. I make it to the finish somewhat falteringly, but I make it. I've left some big holes all along my decreases (not sure if this was due to the needles or if I did my ssk's wrong), which I have to sew up when I weave in the ends. It feels a bit snug. Perhaps Stonecoast isn't the right fit after all? But I'm reassured that everyone has this same thought during their first residency, and, sure enough, the hat stretches to fit my head snugly. And it is soft and warm.