Ireland Hat.

So you guys I am super excited about my new Destination Yarn Hat:

The pattern is the Cecily Hat.  I cast in the Ireland colorway while I was at the trunk show at Yarn Cravin'

The plan was to have it done by St. Patrick's day - Ireland for St. Pats?  Love it.  However  My mom mocked me for this knit a lace hat in two weeks plan so for a bit there I was on a mission to get it done.  Even with the nice weather the knitting was always with me:

And then they predicted it would be 70 and sunny in Cleveland on St. Pat's - not exactly wool hat weather.  So I didn't finish it on time:

It's done now!

Then of course I had the issue of blocking.  I've blocked alot of lace but never a hat.  I crowdsourced Ravelry and Twitter and the consensus was that for a lace hat the best plan was to block it over a plate:

Or, you know, a plate with two bowls stacked on top of it:

I forgot just how much lace can stretch!  I seriously could have kept going with this hat but decided that plate + 2 bowls was plenty big and slouchy enough.

I love this hat.

I love the way the lace pattern looks in this yarn:

I love the simple purl band to separate the ribbing from the pattern stitches:

I love how easy the pattern was to read and how clear the charts were.  And how the decrease chart at the top works all of the lines of the pattern together:

I love that it's big and slouchy and light weight.  I have a feeling it will keep me warm but not too warm - awesome for when I'm schlepping two kids around somewhere.

And I especially love that it used less than half a skein of Destination Yarn:

So.  Now the question remains.  What do I do with 57 grams of sockyarn?  Hmmmmmmm.....