FO Friday: Not Your Grandmother's Knitting

    On second thought, I would not be the least bit surprised if quite a few of the other 939 projects on Ravelry based on the "fornicating deer" chart were, in fact, knit by actual grandmothers.

Here is number #940, knit by me:

Happy Birthday Leonard!

Pattern:  fornicating deer chart by Anne Rutten
Source:  free on Ravelry
Materials:  Cascade 220, Lion Brand Superwash Marino Cashmere, and US 7 needles
Modifications:  The free Ravelry download is a chart for the image, not an actual pattern.  My notes on turning it into a worsted weight hat are Raveled here.

What fun I had knitting this hat!  I brushed up my stranded knitting skills, learned a new skill (lining the hat), and as a bonus I learned some facts about reindeer, or caribou.  I had to do a little research after noticing that many Ravelers removed the antlers from the first deer on the chart.  Some noted that in most deer species, only the males have antlers, and their deer-hunting husbands wanted heterosexual deer on their hats, gosh darn it!  However, if you care about that kind of thing, you might also like to know that both male and female caribou have antlers.  I decided to think of reindeer, and left the antlers.  To each their own!

Here's a peek at the hat lining:

I could not find an on-line tutorial of the process,
so I'm sharing my method here.

After the top of the hat was complete, I picked up the provisional stitches from my cast on row, and knit a few inches with the Lion Brand (cashmere-blend softness without breaking the bank!) yarn.   I knit one last row with the main color and cut the yarn, leaving a tail long enough to tack down the live stitches to purl bumps all the way around the inside of the hat.  As I tacked down the stitches with a yarn needle, I was careful to keep my tension loose, to leave some room for the stitches to stretch when the hat is worn.

This lining does double-duty by covering up a lot of those pesky yarn floats, while adding softness to the brim of the hat.

A big "Thank you!" to Denise of the Knitting Kitties blog, for the hat inspiration.  I first spotted this pattern when she posted pics of the 3 deer hats she made last Christmas in an FO Friday post.

And that folks, is one of the many reasons it's worth checking out the lovely and exciting FO Friday list at Tami's Amis.  You never know when you might spot a project you will add to your queue in time for gift knitting!

P.S.  I will draw a number and announce a contest winner in the morning.  Thanks for your wonderful app suggestions everyone!