It's a cake!....no, it's a hat...

Big sale at my LYS this week. I picked up a super-bulky Tahki yarn called Uma

and had a vision. Now, various yarns always give me visions, but what is unusual is that I came home and began to work on my vision immediately



I combined the Uma with my precious one ball of Malabrigo purples and a novelty yarn called Calliope and ended up with this freeform-y confection of knitting and crochet:

I started by making a 10-stitch garter stitch strip with the Uma, about 19-20 inches long, joining the ends together to make the brim. This gave me a good base upon which I was free to crochet upward toward the crown with abandon, mostly single crochet, switching yarns, doubling back, and occasionally chaining 9-12 stitches and working a corkscrew spiral (by working 3 stitches of half-double crochet into each chain st).

I actually made the crown separately, starting with a fairly uniform circular shape in the Uma. At some point, it was apparent that it was time for the crown piece and the base piece to be joined, which I did with the Calliope, using single crochet and slip stitches randomly around.
Two evenings work and it was finished.

I tried it on. I loved it - it's ME! and it pretty much resembles the vision I had in the yarn shop. Which makes me rather happy. The corkscrews are like my thoughts popping out...
Then, I realized this cake-y hat was the perfect prop to make a visual for my new slogan, which is supposed to help me stop eating the dreadful delicious things that have put 20 pounds on me in the last year:



Will it help? I'll let you know.
'zann