Pink Lemon Twist: Another Musselburgh Hat, Sort Of

I decided to make another Musselburgh hat, but this time I decided to make it out of two different yarns held together. It would be a little thicker than my fingering weight Musselburghs, but hey, winter is coming. I used Hedgehog Fibres Oh So Fine in Sea Glass (which is a fingering weight non-superwash yarn that is super soft), and I paired it with Moondrake Co Yarns Fuwa Fuwa in Frozen (which is a brushed cashmere and wool blend yarn - 70% cashmere!). The Fuwa Fuwa is similar to a Kid Silk Haze type of yarn, but because cashmere has a shorter staple length than kid mohair, there's a little less fuzz - it's more floof than fuzz.

I started out knitting the Musselburgh pattern as written, holding the two yarns together, using US 5's (3.75mm). Once I had gone far enough to have something I could measure I got my gauge and figured out which set of numbers to use for my size, and I was off! As I was approaching the halfway point, I realized that while the fabric I was getting was both floofy and soft, if I knit the hat doubled as it's supposed to be, this hat will be too warm for Texas. Let's face it, we do get some cold weather, but if it's cold enough for what this hat could have become, I'm not going to be outside very long. I decided to finish the hat a little differently - with a hem.

When I got to the halfway point I worked one round in purl for a turning round (still holding the two yarns together). Then I dropped the Oh So Fine and changed to a set of US 3's (3.25mm). (It's important to drop needle size for a hem so that the hem has a slightly smaller circumference -look at me using the maths- than the main part of the garment and lies flat on the inside.) Then I knit the hem for about 1-1/2 inches and stitched the live stitches down into the hat to finish it off.