Peppermint Lounge Hat (2012 FO #4)

Winter has descended on Melbourne, bringing with it the same set of deep personal questions it does every year - what am I doing with my life?  What am I working towards? Why do I choose to live in a city that is cold for half of the year when there are so many places closer to the equator where it's possible to get your Vitamin D from the sun instead of from a tablet? How much do I really love footy? Then, after four months of soul-searching, when I have decided to apply for a transfer to UCLA where it's warm and they get better trashy reality TV (although, of course, I will miss my 'u's), St Kilda make it to the finals and I realise that I really do love footy enough to stay in my cold and windy hometown. Every year - it's like a broken record.

In preparation for the same old cold merry-go-round (also known as seasonal change) this year I decided to start the Campaign to Keep Belinda Warm 2012 (CKBM2012) early, and a few months ago cast on for the Peppermint Lounge Hat from Knitting It Old School, a really fun book with loads of great retro patterns.  I loved how the model looked - so warm, cute and funky.

And snowflakes! Isn't it gorgeous? Except I forgot a) I hate knitting side to side b) I have a massive head and c) the snowflakes weren't included with the pattern. My hat looks more like this:

Clearly too small for my humungous noggin.  The yarn was stash yarn (yay for stashbusting!) - some really old Patons Bluebell and Bendigo Classic 5-ply.

There is either something wrong with the decreases in the pattern or the way I did them (I'd put money on it being the latter) and I ended up with non-matching miters and a white seam down the back which I'm pretty sure is not supposed to be there. However, there was absolutely no way that I was going to count back all the short annoying rows to figure out what the hell I did wrong, so I grafted that sucker up, knitted on the edging and called it a day.

I'm not sure what I'll do with the finished hat but the first Belinda-warming item of 2012 has been a mammoth fail. California is looking more attractive all the time...