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FO Friday: Faux Fur Pom Hat

Last month, I finally stopped by Firefly Fiber Arts, a new (ish?) LYS here in Chicago. I ended up purchasing a skein of Woolfolk Luft, an interesting yarn consisting of extremely soft, fluffy merino fiber blown into a tube of mesh cotton. I've never knit with anything like it, and I thought it would make the perfect hat to match my new winter coat. After spending hours on Ravelry, I finally decided to make the Take Away hat by Nancy Eiseman; I just wanted something simple to let the unique structure of the yarn take center stage.

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I knew it would be cutting it close in terms of yardage for the size I wanted to make, but figured it was worth the risk. In the end, it became pretty clear that I would run out of yarn if I followed the instructions for my size as written, so I ended up knitting til my hat measured 8 inches from the CO edge, and then did 3 rounds of quick decreases to get down to 10 stitches, which I then pulled close with the remaining yarn. I realize that this totally deviates from the intention of the original pattern, but sometimes you have to just work with what you've got, right?!

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I really liked working with this yarn, but frogging it was a little dicey (it's amazing how many times I screwed up the very simple stitch pattern). The fluffiness of the merino inside the mesh meant that the stitches sometimes stuck together, which actually was pretty helpful when it came to avoiding ripping back too many stitches, but the flip side of that was the merino also started coming out of the mesh a bit. In light of that, I am very curious to see how this yarn stands up to daily use, but that remains to be seen! 

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For some reason, I really wanted to add a faux fur pompon at the top (mostly because I knew I wouldn't have enough yarn left over to make a matching pompon?!), and I fortuitously remembered that the Loopy Ewe started carrying some faux fur pompons recently. I ended up ordering two since I had to pay for shipping, so now I have a bright turquoise blue pompon in need of a matching project. One thing I'm wondering is whether or not I can hand wash this hat now that I've attached the pompon - there were no care instructions included in the packaging, nor were there instructions on how to attach it to your project (I just guessed...). The product listing on the Loopy Ewe website says it's machine washable, so I assume I'm ok to hand wash it as well. I've never used a pompon like this, but I've seen several at various shows I've gone to, and this one is of really good quality, especially for the price (just under $8). I would definitely buy more, should I decide that I need more funny faux fur pompons in my life!

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Thanks for stopping by - have a crafty weekend!

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