2 projects: one skein of yarn

Tis the season.....for one skein knits. When Amanda arrived from New York, she came bearing a gift. It was a skein of Schoppel wolle Pur, in shades of black, blue and green, purchased at Annie's which is just around the corner from my brother's apartment on the upper East side.. It is interesting because it is a single ply, slightly felted, and the ombre colors do not repeat in any way.

And then she reminded me that I had promised to make a hat for Preston, her main squeeze, so the gift had a preplanned destiny.

I looked for patterns and decided on the Irish Hiking Hat (bulky)

and began knitting it up. I forgot how fast hats develop, so in a couple of days, it was done, blocked and ready to return to the Big Apple. The finished hat looks different from each angle because of the way the colors knit up.

I added the beanie top and knit more rows before starting the decreases, since several comments mentioned that the hat was not deep enough. What do you think?

With the rest of the skein, I am making a cowl with a very simple pattern: on a multiple of 10:

row 1: knit 5, purl 5

row 2: knit 1, purl 1.

I learned this at Knit Night the other night and will keep knitting until the yarn runs out.