Back at it With the Hats

Pattern: Ruffle Hat by me - Size: 78 stitches - Yarn: Mainstays in Grey & Red Heart Boutique Sashay Metallic in 9929 Diamonds - Needles: US 8 (5mm)

  Since I'm an expert on not feeling quite satisfied with the patterns I come up with, I decided to give it another try.  I did like alternating the round of every bar and every other bar, though on this one I started with an every other row.  I wanted to see how it would look with the ruffles closer together.  I started with a number divisible by 8, which means either a 1x1 or 2x2 rib could be worked.  I still worked the 12 rows of ribbing and two plain rows before adding the ruffle yarn.  I then worked the ruffle yarn in 4 sections around the hat instead of 6.  I worked one plain stitch and then one with the ruffle yarn while still skipping a bar to see if I could work the row that normally would used every bar without having to twist them or have it try and migrate into the inside of the hat when I don't want it to.  I think this is the best one yet.

Pattern: Jingle Jester Hat by me - Yarn: Caron Simply Soft Sunkissed in Grape Tonal - Hook: I/9 (5.5mm)

  We were talking about all things nostalgic on someone's Twitch stream and Gaia Online came up.  I decided to try and get into my account again, especially since I spent a lot of real money buying those special item letters back when I used to play often.  It told me that my account had been blocked because there had been suspicious activity.  I opened a ticket and got an automated message that I could use their chat to try and get it fixed.  They asked a lot of questions that I could only vaguely answer while also giving them too much information.  When they asked where I made the account, I told them that I was in location A, but sometimes that shows up as location B online.  It seems I gave all the right answers because it took almost no time for them to unban my account.  They warned me that because it had been so long, there was no way to see what gold/platinum or items had been sold by the hacker.  When I logged in it looked like most of my gold/platinum was gone, but that my items were still there.  The lost gold/platinum is a bummer, but not a big deal.  I was worried about my unopened letters and special items.  I was especially worried about the engraved pocket watch Bill sent me, even though it's not actually worth much on the marketplace.

Pattern: B186 Galway Diamond Hat by Plymouth Yarn - Size: 80 stitches - Yarn: unknown roving yarn - Needle: US8 (6mm)

  I found this yarn and was worried it was both "not enough" and "too much".  By that I mean that I would either run out too quickly or I would have an odd amount left over that was too big to just throw out and too small to do anything with.  I did the math and found what I hoped was the perfect project for it.  I ran into two problems with this hat.  The roving yarn likes to stick to itself, so it's hard to take out stitches, which is a technique I use when trying to use all of the yarn.  I also didn't check the pattern notes I made for myself and took out 8 rows instead of the 5 I needed to.  It still looks really good in the end though.

Yearly Yarn Tracker:

Yarn In: 22 (0)
Yarn Out: 43 (0)

Total: -21