18-19” circumference of finished hat without blocking, using 20” pattern stitch counts/rows

This was my final project of the Indie Design Gift-A-Long 2025, wrapping it up and photographing it after 11pm on New Year’s Eve!

I’m so glad that I challenged myself to do the Opadoo and include categories that I usually postpone, lots of new designers, a variety of techniques including lace, cables, textured crochet, garter for the full surface of a hat, short-row colorwork, short-row bust darts, fingering through bulky (fingering and sport of course on the two largest projects, because, yeah!), new hat structures from Woolly Wormhead, designers I kept wanting to try but for personal projects, which I typically pospone a lot!

I won a few codes for free patterns and am still trying to decide how to use them, including gifting some possibly to my daughter and my best friend.. And then I won one of the prize drawings for this amazing prize package from YarnSmarts ! I am sadly allergic to the 3 great lines of wool, but my daughter has stopped reacting to wool and LOVES greys in yarn (and we all have a sweet spot for lime thanks to my son) so she’ll be in heaven with the 4 skeins. The teaser image and description had me expecting only 2 of the Berocco Remix Light, which I can use, but I got 4 and I’m really happy about that surprise!

Thank you!