Bright Contrast Lacy Hat

Well, it looks like I've found a way to combine my hobbies again.  Life would probably be easier if I had fewer hobbies but I'm pretty sure that's not going to happen.  I enjoy far to many things to ever try to choose between them.  Overlapping them, though, that can get interesting.  I just discovered that I do some of my most creative crafting while watching horror movies.  I'm not certain if it's just because I'm often watching horror movies or if it's something about the genre that does it but some of my favorite projects happened while I was watching darker films.  The odd thing is that none of my more macabre projects were made in relation to a horror film; my horror projects tend to be quite normal.  My Favorite Scarf is rather different but it isn't gruesome or Halloween-ish at all and I made it while watching The Crow.  Comparatively, I think I came up with the idea for the Blood Scarf over lunch one day.  There really is no telling what's going on in the dark recesses of my brain at any given moment.

I think what probably happens is that I pay more attention to horror/suspense movies than I do to other types of movie.  If you aren't watching carefully you can miss something important or a good shock moment.  Having to pay extra attention means that my options for other things to do while watching the movie is pretty limited (I simply cannot sit still while watching movies or TV, I have to have something else to do or I get bored).  The one thing I can do without having to pay much attention to it is crochet.  For whatever reason my fingers can keep doing what they're doing while I pay attention to something else.  

I guess the point of the whole story is that I recently purchased a large quantity of horror flicks to add to my collection (I'm up to 78 films that qualify, if you count some of the cute ones like Hocus Pocus).  As I intend to watch as many of the 40ish new films (plus what I have scheduled to DVR) before Halloween we'll get to see if my theory holds water or not.  If I'm right I ought to have a bunch of new things to put up.

The pattern I have for you today I came up with while I was watching The Fog.   It has no relation to anything in the movie, it's just what came off my hook while I was absorbed with watching.  I had never seen The Fog before and that kept my fingers steadily stitching along.  Hmm, maybe that's the link.  It may be movies that I've never seen or have seen very infrequently that do it.  Testing that should be stupidly easy and incredibly enjoyable.  There are a great number of horror flicks from the 70's and 80's that I've never seen as I was far to young for them at the time.  For instance, I've never seen Nightmare on Elm Street, it's many sequels, or any of the Halloween movies.  I'll just have to sit down with a big sack of yarn and some hooks and alternate the nights where I watch new movies with nights where I watch my old standbys like Hannibal and From Hell.  Oh yeah, this should be fun!

Bright Contrast Lacy Hat
Fits a 22 inch head

Materials

G-hook
50g (about 165 yards) of Red Heart Designer Sport, about 25g each color for a 2 color hat

Gauge: The first three rounds should be about 3 inches in diameter

A few notes on this pattern.  I did not designate a "color A" or "color B" for this project, mostly because I'm lazy and it made writing the pattern easier not to have to have to add that to it.  Also, since I was only alternating colors it seemed silly to specify.  You could use as many colors as you want, really.  I happened to like just using the two I did for contrast purposes.


Round 1:  Ch 2, 8sc in first chain. Join and turn.
Round 2:  Ch4 (counts as first dc and ch 2 throughout) then 1 dc, ch2 in each stitch around.  Join final ch 2 to the second chain of the first ch 4.  Turn.
Round 3:  Ch4, (dc, ch2) around in both the ch2 spaces of the previous round and in the tops of the dc's, join and break off.
Round 4:  Join your new color and sc around, 2 sc in each ch2 space and 1sc in the top of the dc.  Join and turn. 
Round 5:  Ch 4, skip 1, (dc, ch2, skip 1) around . Join and turn.
Round 6:  Repeat round 3, including the break off.
Rounds 7:  Repeat Round 4.
Round 8:   Repeat Round  5 skipping 2 sts instead of 1.  Round 9:  Ch 4, (dc, ch2) in each dc around.  Join and break yarn.
Rounds 10-12, 13-15, and 16-18: Repeat rounds 7-9
Round 19:  Repeat Round 4.
Round 20:  Work 1 stitch sc decreases all the way around.  Join and turn.
Round 21-22:  C1, (sc, ch1) around.  Join and turn.  Break yarn after Round 21.
Round 23-24:  Join the second color and work as for rounds 20-21.  Break off, weave ends.