FO Friday: Refreeze Hat

For once, I had the inspiration, know-how, and materials to make something unique enough to call it my design.  That's right: my very first design!

And it's on Ravelry!  That makes it double official!

Okay, enough with the exclamation points.  You get it: I did something new and I'm proud of the way it turned out.  When I'm being honest with myself, I think things like "Well, anyone could have come up with that pattern," or "You're not really making anything new, you're just combining knowledge that you already had."  It's a simple pattern.  All you need to know is cast on, knit in the round, 1X1 rib, stockinette, K2tog, and how to place beads on stitches with a tiny crochet hook.

That's the hardest part: the beading.  And again, I made it really simple by doing an easy diamond chart that anyone could have written.  But the technique for beading was a little time consuming.  For each of those 224 beads, I had to

1. Pick up a bead with a tiny crochet hook.
2. Slip a stitch from the left-hand needle onto the same crochet hook.
3. Slide the bead down onto both legs of the stitch (with much, much help from the tiny hook).
4. Put the stitch back onto the needle and knit it.

Can you tell I'm a technical writer in my day job?  I love lists.

If you need pictures to go with those steps, you could check out this tutorial from About.com.  The only difference is that she did not knit her stitch after it had a bead on it.  Maybe I did it wrong; maybe it doesn't matter.

I hope you like my pattern.  Try it out, and let me know if there are any mistakes.