And the right hand is holding?

Last week I had made significant headway (snicker) on Mauricio's hat.  On Thursday, there were five of seven repeats completed and the biggest concern I had was if there would be enough yarn remaining.  There was a second skein of the green on hold at yarn shop in case this happened but as it turned out there was enough (for this particular hat).

Can you see where I changed hands with the green/brown?

This is the first two-stranded knitting that I have done and have learned why it is important to keep track which color is in which hand (and the importance of doing your gauge swatch in the color work AND making sure the gauge/final desired outcome coincide).  I am doing color work with the double knit mittens, that are currently off in UFO-land, but they don't count in my head since they seem to be a different type of critter.

When I started the hat, must have held the brown in my right hand and the green in my left. Two weeks ago while at The Cat and Crow, I switched to green in my right and brown in my left.  It is not so visible to the untrained eye (at least I hope so) from the front, but when Rebecca turned the hat inside out it became obvious that I had changed gears.  Had asked her to look at my stranding as I was worried I may be knitting too tightly, which I'm not.

If you look closely at the first picture, you can tell where I switched colors which has given me a very good knitting tip to pass on to you.  When doing a color piece, swatch a portion, making note which color is in which hand, and then switch. This way you can see if the appearance of the item will be altered any.  When I look at the hat, the brown yarn in right-hand appears more subdued and the right-hand held green pops more. 

Last Friday was my last Furlough day and I had hoped to complete the hat then. Unfortunately ran into some issues with loosing track of where I was on the charts so had a major visit to the Frog Pond not once but twice over the weekend.  Had most of the hat completed Wednesday night before leaving The Cat and Crow (didn't go Tuesday as had a belated pedicure and haircut - short hair requires constant cuts). Stayed up until the wee hours (okay was done by midnight but it felt like the wee hours since I was extremely tired and wanted to go to bed) and finished the knitting.  I left the yarns attached and ran a safety pin through the live stitches as I wanted to see how it fit Mauricio and THIS is how it fitted.

To quote Charlier Brown "Aarrgh!!" While I did have gauge with plain stockinette (like the pattern called for), this again shows why you should do your gauge swatch in the actual color work so you know how much it will suck up and you can compensate accordingly.  Will weave in the ends, and with any luck, blocking will make it big enough to fit either an adult with an extremely small head or a child.  Regardless of who receives the hat, I still need to make a hat to fit Mauricio's noggin (must remember to bring tape measure to work on Monday).  After I have his head dimension, will peruse the stash and see what I can turn up for Mauricio's Hat v2.0.