Shedir in Red

This shows how little yarn I had left when the hat was complete... crazy, huh?

This cap was a labor of love.  A lot of work but worth it. The pattern is called Shedir and the pattern can be found HERE.  The yarn is Berroco Comfort DK in red.  The gal, who designed the pattern as a chemo cap, is named Jenna Wilson and I am convinced she is a genius.  Such an amazing design.

I was working on this hat over New Year's weekend when it occurred to me that there was no way I was going to have enough yarn to finish this project.  If I would have picked any other Berroco Comfort DK yarn I have in my stash, I would have had a spare ball of yarn... but not the red.  My friend, Harriet, recently made a hat with the same yarn so I emailed her in a panic to see if she saved her leftover yarn.  She had and offered it to me... I offered one of my kidneys in exchange (that's how desperate I was!).  But I really wanted to finish the hat and I was not sure when I would see Harriet again.  I just kept knitting and refused to rip out any rows.  Around Row 66 of the pattern, after the eight row cable repeats were done, I started to eliminate rows.  As long as the rows did not contain any cable stitches or decreases, they were eliminated... I was ruthless!   The star/snowflake design on the top of my hat looks "tighter" compared to the beautiful hat pictured on the pattern pages.  I encouraged you to check out the pattern to see the photos... the hat is gorgeous in pale pink.  I read some reviews written by others who have made this pattern.  Some left out one repeat of the eight row cable pattern. If I make this hat again, I will leave out one eight row cable repeat and then I am pretty sure I'll have sufficient yarn with one skein of Berroco Comfort DK. The cap is designed to be rather long to cover the hair line but would be fine with one cable repeat omitted.   Also, I read where some folks completed this hat without a cable needle and the project went much more quickly.  I could really get on board with that... I need to learn more about this magical way of twisting stitches sans cable needle?  Cool!  Some rows in this pattern are very slow with the cables. After awhile, I kind of thought the cables looked like pretzels!

My V.I.P. received this hat, as well as the cream colored Shells and Trellis cap, in the mail late this week and she loves them.  Yay!  

In case you are wondering... what does "Shedir" mean?  I was curious; I had to look it up.  Here goes::

Alpha Cassiopeiae (α Cas / α Cassiopeiae ) is the second-brightest star in the constellation Cassiopeia (magnitude 2.25). It has the traditional name Schedar (which may also be spelt as Shedar, Shadar, Schedir, or Shedir).

The top of the hat does look like a star.  Fitting name indeed!