A group of us had a winter weekend away to Orange to taste nice wines, eat nice food and breathe that crisp country air. It was freezing so when we met for breakfast on Saturday morning we were all wearing every woollen garment we owned. Well, all except for my cousin Rob.

Rob looked round the group at Julie wearing the hat I’d made her, Andrew wearing one of many hats I’d made him (some of which he hasn’t yet lost), me wearing my Serendipity scarf and Matt wearing a jumper and a scarf I’d made for him.

“Why don’t I have any knitted stuff from you?! I’m FAMILY!”

I pointed out that everything he was wearing had a designer label on it and that wonky handknits didn’t really seem to be his cup of tea, but there was still a bit of sulking so I felt guilty enough to do something about it. He’s going skiing in NZ at the end of the month so I offered him a hat for the trip. (I changed the offer from a scarf after he casually mentioned how frequently he leaves scarves on trains. What is it with the men I know and their inability to retain clothing on public transport?)

Rob asked for a navy and white hat but after the train anecdote I decided he could have stash yarn until I knew he could be trusted with the fancy stuff. So I dug out the Harvest and found some leftover Nundle 8ply that looked quite nice with it, and cast on a million stitches (Rob has the family melon-head).

I don’t know what I did with the cast-on, but the edge looked oddly crenelated (see the last pic for gory details). I think I was trying so hard to cast on loosely that I overshot and ended up with slop, so once I finished the hat I unpicked the cast on, knitted the stripe again and cast off less messily. My big tip for the stripe is to do the first row in the new colour as all purl, so that when the brim is folded up it doesn’t look scruffy.

I’m meeting Rob next week to hand over the hat, so let’s cross our fingers that it makes it back from Queenstown and doesn’t contribute yet again to a lost property box in a transport office somewhere. Oh yes, and happy holiday, cous!