Seriously people … I think I have a new most-favorite hat ever:

Project: Sugarbunny Cloche Divined

Pattern: Cloche Divine

Designer: Meghan Jones

Available: FREE! on Ravelry

Yarn: Knit Picks Sugarbunny in Hawk

Some time back in 2011, I made mittens for a friend.  In payment, she bought some yarn from my KP wish list: two balls of the limited-edition “Sugarbunny” merino/angora blend.  Recently I got a PM on Ravelry asking if I’d sell a ball to someone looking to finish a sweater … I couldn’t do that without making a hat first, because I knew the hat would take one full ball and a bit of the second.  Ergo: hat!

This was a remarkably quick knit. I cast on Dec 15th, and finished Dec 17th.  The pattern has the entire hat knit flat and seamed, but I elected to knit in the round after the brim was complete.  There were a few things that seemed overly fiddly to me — I saw no need to cut the main yarn while putting on the “tab” that “gathers” the short rows, for example — but that is a minor quibble with an otherwise excellent (and FREE!) pattern.  The gathers are made with short row-shaping and then knitting the layers together to hold them in place. I made a size L (for my extra-big head) but began crown shaping at 7 inches (otherwise it would have been far to L, even for my extra-big head).