Third hat's the charm

Well, in my second-to-last post, I showed some funny pictures of a hat that didn't quite fit.  The saga has ended, but not without some to-dos in between.  The first hat ended up like a glorified cat bed.  There was the second hat, a Stirling cloche (Ravelry link) made out of Berroco Ultra Alpaca that ended up looking like a bit of felted muppet.  The third hat ended up - just right! Third time's the charm, they say. 

Remember this hat?  The cat is for size. 

Well, here you see the hat on the left - after felting - with a normal-sized beret to the right. Oops!  

Glorified cat bed, indeed...   Obviously, that wasn't going to work, and I wanted an actual, honest-to-goodness felted hat, only this time, I thought I'd try a nice, classic cloche.  So I knit up a bunch of Berroco Ultra Alpaca, foolishly held double.

Thus, the felted muppet. Again, oops. 

So, I tried again, determined to get it right this time. Third time's the charm, right?  This time, I broke out the Cascade 220, the size 10.5 needles, and about 100 stitches, and cast on for what I hoped would be a charming hat.  Cascade 220 is supposed to felt like a charm, right?  So why not give it a go, I thought. 

   

This time, it worked out far better than I could have hoped!! 

I love this hat! I love it so much I've cast on for another for a holiday gift, and am hoping to do yet another. When I really put my mind to it, I can crank out a big loopy stockinette hat in a few hours, and hopefully have them done for the holidays.

Unfortunately, the other hat - the interview - didn't land me a job.  I had a good experience at the interview, though, and learned a lot about what I could do better next time.  Now we just need to keep our fingers crossed for a good outcome for both Coffeeboy and myself, somewhere, but that good outcome is looking farther and farther away, much to our disappointment.  We started the fall with many good possibilities, and they are all disappearing.  I keep trying to keep my chin up about it all, but sometimes it's hard to look on the bright side.  Maybe a happy holidays will make the time and waiting pass a little bit better.