February Hat - Monkey Bones

My February Hat is Wendy Bernard's Monkey Bones Super Slouch. I loved this hat the moment I saw it. And I had someone in mind for it too. My 13 year old Godson in England has always been a fan of the monkeys and I've previously made him a Knitty Sock Monkey Hat.

One problem with this project, is that I had never knit fair-isle before, and this project is all about the fair-isle. I also wanted to make the hat in somewhat traditional sock-monkey colours.
What's a girl to do then, but take a class about colour and fair-isle. This I did at Stitches West, with the wonderful (and fellow Brit) Fiona Ellis. Here are my class swatches (not related to the hat), showing the difference the background colours make, when the same pattern colours are used. Quite a startling contrast, right.
And while I'm showing my Stitches swatches off, here's the one I made in Candace Eisner-Strick's "Traditions!" class. That's a latvian braid right in the middle, looking a bit like arrows, or birds' feet. She was also a wonderful, and very funny, teacher :0)
I digress, so, back to the hat. Not finished in Feb, but started in Feb. I ordered the yarn (Brown Sheep Nature Spun Sport) as soon as I got home from Stitches ('cos there was, like, no yarn at Stitches!!!). I had to think really hard about which colours to choose. I only made one big mistake, selecting a colour that was too yellow to complement the tan colour for the monkey's bones. A quick search on Ravelry found me a much better match (I hope - it's on its way right now).

I did cast on for the ribbed brim though and managed to complete that in just one afternoon. Man, I'm impatient for the yarn to arrive so I can get on with this. I think I caught the colourwork bug bad. Watch this space.....