2016:
When I knit this hat I was a new enough knitter I didn’t realize the drapiness of the silk would cause the hat to stretch out over time. After letting it languish in my closet for a year I ripped back to an inch and a half before the original decrease then started the new decrease section immediately. Much better!
Originally used: 1.4 skeins/70 g/210 yards

2013:
While I’m not normally a variegated yarn person, the colors and feel of the Manos just pulled me in, and I decided to take a risk. (My fellow-knitter cousin egging me on didn’t help, but in fairness she was taking revenge for my encouraging her purchase of Habu skeins.)

1/18 - 3 rows in, and coming out beautifully so far. The join is a little loose, but in the interests of not nitpicking myself to death I’m not going to worry about it. It’s my first project in the round, and it’s for me anyway.

This yarn is incredibly comfortable to work with, but I am a bit worried about pilling -- it certainly doesn’t frog very well. The colors are glorious, though, and the garter stitch pattern shows them to their best while preventing pooling.

2/06 - Ready to start decreasing! Though first I need to get some dpns… For fellow beginners, I found this tutorial to be very useful for figuring out how to switch from circulars to double pointed.

2/09 - Finished! My first round of decreases got a little messy, so I frogged back and redid them, switching to double pointed needles a few rows earlier. Despite my concerns, the yarn held up all right.

The finished product is gloriously squishy and looks fantastic -- I can’t wait to start wearing it. I have about 90 yards of the yarn left, some of which will go towards making a belated swatch to test washing techniques on, the rest of which will eventually become jewelry: probably Odd Ends and/or Cufflink.

Assuming the hat holds up reasonably well to washing and wearing, I’ll definitely be knitting with Manos again. By far my favorite yarn to knit with so far.

Techniques learned: twisted German cast on, knitting in the round (circular needles), k2tog.

Swatch notes: 20 stitches on size 7 = 4.25 inches, unwashed.