Mrs. Jekyll & Little Hyde

My new hat pattern is almost out! (Edit: it IS out and you can find it here on ravelry!!!)
It's a reversible hat with a dual personality disorder!

Mrs. Jekyll looks slightly sinister, doesn't she?

The one side (Mrs. Jekyll of course) is a dainty feminine lacy hat with 2 main lace patterns that repeat in different combinations all through to the top, while the other side (called Little Hyde, just in case that you were wondering...) is a playful sporty take on narrow stripes on a colourful contrast yarn and only some tiny little eyelets near the brim.

The colour of Little Hyde is showing through the eyelets of the lace - and if you choose a bright colour for the contrasting lining of the hat (one that's different from your hair colour works best), then your Mrs. Jekyll will have some coloured spots that shine through her lace!!!

The best part in this hat (in my humble opinion of course) is that both hats share the same brim, that is made in one layer only. Most reversible hats have this bulky brim because they have the lining start from the very edge of the hat! This results in having too much fabric around the face - a look which is fine with bulky hats, but I didn't want this for the feminine little lace beret I had in mind.

So I thought about a way to make the ribbing with one layer only and to incorporate the lining stitches when finishing the brim of the hat - with a seamless construction of course!

It all worked out just fine and both hats are connected to the fine ribbing without any bulky seams that might show through to the other side of the hat!

This idea of mine is explained with a photo-tutorial step by step in the pattern, so that it will be quite easy to reproduce!

And of course I just had to make the tubular cast-on for this hat... again... !
This time with the contrast colour for the first rounds, to visually "connect" Mrs. Jeckyll and Little Hyde!

Since I tried this cast-on method I just can't go back to any other... especially when working fine yarn and especially for hats and mittens (where you notice the cast-on much more and where you just need to have some stretch in it). If you don't know this technique I strongly suggest you'd check it out: here is a great video link from Ysolda Teague)

Finally the double layer of the hat has also a practical reason (besides being fun when we try to emulate our own dual personalities)! It gives added warmth, since a hat in light fingering yarn (Holst supersoft in this case) wouldn't be very useful for winter - especially in fine lace!

The pattern for the hat will be available starting the 26th of October 2013. 
For today only my friends from my knit-group here in Athens will get the pattern as an early christmas present... since I won't be here for the next couple of meetings!

Oh... I absolutely forgot!!!
I thought it would be fun to play a launch game for this pattern: Tomorrow I'll open a thread in my group on ravelry about the Mrs.Jekyll & Little Hyde pattern and the first 15 commenters will get the pattern as a gift!


So keep your eyes on the group!