Introducing Escargot

Escargot

It was June 2010 and Kel, Danielle, and I were flying down the highway coming back to Alexandria from TNNA (the yarn industry trade show) in Columbus, Ohio. Danielle may or may not have been pushing the speed limit just a smidgen, and Kel may or may not have been clinging to the Mini's door in abject terror. There was a lot of chatter and planning, interspersed with laughter and highway-induced exasperation. I was taking notes as we planned the next year in yarn for fibre space... and I was doodling.

One of the doodles turned into the Hatskarfenmitten.

The other doodle became Escargot. But it took a while. Things changed and we moved to California, but I couldn't get the idea of a funky, asymmetrical, spiral-enhanced cloche out of my head. This summer, I bumped into Amy Singer, the editor of Knitty, at a couple of yarn festivals, and told her I had a really cool hat idea. She said, "send it in."

Pretending we are waiting for the train. With real genuine 1920s women's magazine.

Sure, I had an idea, but the real challenge lay in making it all in one piece and getting the spiral to work the way I wanted. I knit and ripped out the cast-on section of the pattern a half-dozen times before the spiral would lay flat and be the right size. (And be happy, knitters, because the original cast-on was four hundred stitches. Not fun to rip out and re-knit once, let alone a bunch of times.) I threw it across the room in disgust more than once.

By the time I finally figured it out, I was sick of it. I called up fibre space and ordered some beautiful BFL yarn from Dragonfly Fibers and got it in the mail. My mom knit the first two hats (one of which was for testing only and doesn't show up in any of the photos). I got more yarn - again, a beautiful BFL - from Miss Babs, and knit two more hats. I cajoled a bunch of friends from my local knitting group into an early morning photo shoot (it's really hard to make California in August feel like winter anywhere), triple-checked everything, and sent it off to Knitty, fingers crossed.

I heard back a while later, and have been waiting to be able to tell you about it ever since.

Now it's here and you can knit one! I couldn't be more excited. The pattern is here, and you can queue it up on Ravelry here. Happy knitting!