Back in March, I went to the Black Swamp Spinner’s Guild Market Day.  I bought pencil roving.  I brought it home and, within a day or two, I cast on for a hat.  It was a hat of epic failure.  It was too big.  Massively too big.  Even for my giant head.  There was no saving it.

I eventually ripped and set the yarn in the active project basket in the family room.  This basket is on the top shelf of the bookcase and had always been safe from kitten depredations.  This time, not so much.  There is something about the pencil roving that drives Barry to a state of unbridled passion the likes of which I have never seen outside of a trashy book cover.  He somehow got the yarn down and had a long and private moment with it one evening.  This involved chewing on rather a lot of it.  I salvaged what I could but found myself a bit frustrated with the whole thing and so tossed it (safely bagged to prevent further incidents) into the recesses of the stash closet.

The other day I decided that I really wanted woolly hat.  I needed it.  There was no other alternative.  So I dug out the pencil roving, did better math, and cast on again.  The results so far can be seen below.  And while I fully acknowledge that it looks a little funny right now, I have absolute confidence that this will be exactly what I want after another hour or two of knitting.  No really.  It will.  I’m sure of it.