I am having a bit of a crisis about THE PROJECT these days. After having spent most of the last year knitting like crazy from a 50 year old book, and having filled up 3 extra large Ziploc Space bags (the kind you suck the air out of with a vacuum) with hats, I begin to wonder WHAT THE HELL AM I DOING??? Is this just stupid? I guess if I wasn’t doing this I would be knitting something else anyway, so for now, I guess I will soldier on. 190 pattern stitches down, 354 to go…are you kidding me…seriously, this is stupid.
I felt I had to get rid of the Tulip Pattern, pg 25 because I kept thinking ugh! every time I looked at it. I did garter stitch instead of stockinette in the below and above rows of the pattern, but I feel these are just to sides of the same coin anyway. I used 99 stitches for this, then increased to 112 for the Navajo Basket, pg 75. I went back down to 104 for the Chevron, pg 26 because, being a simple knit/purl combination, it takes in much less than the colour work. I did a repeat of the Chevron pattern, then decreased to 88 for another go at the Navajo Basket.
At this point, I noticed that the Chevron wanted to collapse on itself. I had been planning to do stair steps with the Navajo Basket on the top, but I thought…lets go with this and I did another two folds, decreasing 16 stitches every time I changed patterns. I have accordianed the hat out a bit below so you can see the structure a little better.
gillianknits 
I admire your drive to do all of Barbara’s stitches. And maybe since you have so many hats, maybe you should try her stitches in something else. What about scarves or if you want to go big, what about a blanket showing a number of different stitches? With the variety of stitches you have to choose from, a larger piece might be more “wall hanging” than anything else but it sure would show off the differences in the stitches and the different stitches.LOL!
Thanks Heather but scarves have way more knitting in them than hats and the only part of this I find truly interesting is the decreasing to make the tops look good. It’s probably hats or nothing.
Like how this one looks like a tulip from the top!
Yeah, I was a bit iffy on the whole thing when I finished it but it has grown on me over the last couple of days.
It is ok to call it a day if it is stressing you out. Life and everything you do should be fun. Choose to be happy cause it is good for your health! To repeat the advise my wise little sister gave my daughter “get rid of your make your own stress projects”
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Thanks Pen but I am over it. I do realize I can quit whenever I want. I am not sure what I would fill the void with if I stopped this. Ruth had a good idea that I should keep going till my trip and reassess after that.