Modified 1898 Hat with Owls on top: Found a ball of New Zealand Wool in my stash and the hat sort of evolved from there. Made band with more garter ridges than in pattern because gauge was smaller than specified and I didn’t have bigger circulars that were free. After finishing that and picking up for the top (with ridge on outside) - it sort of reminded me of a snowy owl. There were 88 stitches at this point. After a few rounds, I increased every 8 to make 99 stitches and then used another pattern I have (http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/hoot-hoot-hat) to do 8-stitch cabled owls with 3 purl stitches in between (11 stitch repeat). Decreased 1 (of the 3) after body of owl (2 purl between) and then 1 more after the last cable… then 9x around more or less every other row until 9 stitches left and tied off. Did brown yarn ‘eyes’ and ‘beak’ - but it sort of gets lost in the marled yarn - if I hadn’t been over-excited to ship to the giftee, might have looked around for some buttons, but she’ll love it (I hope!)… Nifty, Huh?