FO Friday: Cherry Legume, plus a Review

Earlier this week you saw this photo:

And I bet you were wondering what my hat was, right??

Of course you were.

Well it's Legume, by Jen Lucas (um, first time I'm typing your name that way Jen!).  Jen is working on putting out an eBook, one pattern at a time.  Legume is the first pattern of the set.  Released on January 1st, I whipped right through this thing.  Granted, I had bought the yarn well ahead of time.  As soon as Jen listed the pattern on Ravelry, I was planning away.  We had just gotten the recommended yarn in at the shop so I figured I'd go with that one.

I love my hat though.  I wore it almost all of Vogue Knitting Live weekend.  It kept my head nice and toasty in the randomly cold NYC weekend (weather has been spring-like, and then of course for Vogue it decided to be a little brutal).

Project page:  Cherry Legume
Yarn:  Madelinetosh Chunky
Needles:  Knit Picks Harmony US 7, Knitter's Pride Cubics US 8
Mods:  None

As expected, I love this yarn.  Madelinetosh does amazing colors always.  BUT don't expect this yarn to genuinely be a chunky weight.  When is a Madelinetosh yarn ever the weight it claims to be??

For the first time, I used the Cubics needles.  Knitter's Pride and Knit Picks use the same overseas company (Knit Pro...seriously, what's with all the K.P. companies) to create their wooden interchangeable needle tips.  Therefore, they are interchangeable in and of themselves.  And since I can't find my Harmony size 8s and the shop recently started carrying Cubics interchangeable, I couldn't resist finally trying them out.  I really didn't notice any difference in using these as compared to using the typical circular shaped needle.  I've heard that these needles can help with gauge problems.  As a loose knitter, I'm always having to go down a size needle than recommended.  I did that with this project and this hat came out very tight on my head.  Not uncomfortably tight, but just tight enough that I can't wear it when my hair is curly without looking like a clown.  This could be because the entire hat is essentially made up of 1x1 ribbing.

I love that I can get these needles easily and locally.  I hate that if I break a needle, I have to wait a while for Knit Picks to ship.  The only thing I don't like about these needles is that they don't go smaller than a US 6...yet.