magid

Thanksgiving weekend, I was invited to a "dinosaur disco" party, which somehow inspired me to make this hat, with a ridge along the top and scales that I thought ended up more fishlike than I'd intended. Still fun, even though it wore a bit more like one of those decorated 50s swim caps than I wanted.

dino fish

I really liked the color combination, and realized that the wavy top could be useful turned into a longer ridge-line below the rest of the hat, becoming a scarf-hat.

fish hat scarf

That got me thinking about my usual hat shape, with a flat rather than rounded top, and how a squiggle of taller color would look. Very tall, as it turns out; I have to wear this at a tilt.

salamander crew

The next iteration was the same shape, but with a spiral up the hat that got taller. I think I need to block the hat to make the taller stitches have some chance of standing up.

spiral tower 1

Because that one looked so much more cluttered than I'd envisioned, I tried a spiral with fewer turns, that only got tall towards the middle.

spiral tower 2

Now I'm considering another hat with these colors, perhaps with side ruffles or fins, or experimenting more with layers of single crochet in spirals/squiggles instead of using taller stitches.

Oh, earlier this week I realized that some of my purple yarns went together, and I still wanted to use spirals from the previous hats, which is how I ended up with this one. (Note: there is a spiral of purple variegated yarn around the top and down the brim, visible in other photos on Ravelry.)

purple spiral

Last night I got a call from a friend who needed my assistance, suggesting I bring yarn. I'd been dithering about a next project (I need more yarn inspiration). With the impetus of a bunch of crochet time, I figured out something that would be satisfying. I used up some pink yarn and much of the purple.