Spindle Spun Gnomy Hat

I couldn't let those first spindling efforts go to waste so I made this:



It's the "Gnomy Hat" from "Knitter's Almanac" by Elizabeth Zimmerman. She is a genius! This is the first toque I have ever tried on, let alone knit, that doesn't slide up off the ears in the wearing. It is specially designed with simple shaping that makes it a little longer over the ears. I think it looks great. It was easy to knit too.

What makes this hat EXTRA special (to me anyway) is that it is my very first spinning efforts. All of the singles, and most of the plying, were done on a drop spindle. There is quite a bit of variation in the thickness of the yarn. The very first bit, where I was an absolute beginner, is quite thick. As I learned it got thinner and more evenly spun. In the knitting of the hat, I had to double the strands of my later efforts to make them match the gauge of the earlier stuff.

The scarf in the picture is a WIP I'll be discussing later.