Finished hat

I've been calling this my pumpkin hat.  It is the exact shade of the pumpkin I bought at the store and is slouchy, so it has a certain...roundness.  My husband thinks it looks nice, but to me it seems as though I have a pumpkin head and might also have dreadlocks hidden under the slouchiness.  Either that or I'm wearing an orange old-fashioned chef's hat.  I loved the color until I put it on yesterday night.  Sigh.  But at least it's warm and comfortable.  Who knows, I may grow to love it again.

I also finished with mere feet left.  Yesterday I frantically noticed my yardage shrinking, but I was nowhere close to finished.  The pattern called for two skeins of yarn, but each recommended skein had 144 yards and my skeins only had 109, which left me 80 yards short of the pattern recommendation.  After a morning spent in dismay, calling yarn shop after yarn shop and not finding any more of the yarn, I figured out if I backtracked and started decreasing every row a little earlier, it would be ok, and it was.  My heart is still pounding from those last few rounds.  Knitting is so exciting.  (Sly grin.)

This is right before finishing.  Relief!

And here's what's left, including yarn from the cast-on and finishing bits.