Not Quite What I'd Planned

You know, I don't see a lot of flops posted on knitting blogs.

And I guess I could wait until I had something good to post.

But ... I'll show you my flop. Or maybe it's not a flop, but a rough draft.

'Cause sometimes things don't turn out like I planned.

I give you: The C-3PO hat - Attempt II

Attempt I was frogged before you ever saw it.

Attempt II didn't go quite like I'd envisioned, but it was a learning experience, and in some ways I needed to press on to see how I'd like it in the end.

So here's the idea:

From the front - a regular beanie, yellow/gold. The BACK of his head.
From the back - C-3PO's face, with an extended "chin" panel.

Why? Because, like Kelly said earlier, "Wouldn't a C-3PO cap just be yellow?" -- I needed some way to get his face in.

Some problems I ran into:

Well you know when you're knitting a rib and the purl columns pull back? That doesn't mean they'll do that if you're working horizontally - a purled section puffs OUT ... thus the spookiness around the "cheekbones" ~ in my head it was going to pull back, not puff out. I should've known that, because I know knitting horizontal ribs the purls stick out. But ... oh well. I didn't think that through.

Stranding and Intarsia. Wow, they're just hard! Getting the tension right, not gapping, not puckering, especially working in the round. This added to the spooky eyes. So next time (yes, yes, there will be a next time. But I should really finish that sock, too ... Hmmm) I will try the "duplicate stitch method" which makes more sense on this anyway, being that there's not really a LOT of other-colored parts to deal with.

I tried a pseudo-bobble for the eyebrows (because I was too lazy to learn how to do a horizontal cable) and should've purled instead of knit the extra stitches.

And I guess it needs to be a little smaller. Or I need a bigger headed model (looks around for Gark) ...

Since I haven't started Attempt III yet, I'm open to gracious suggestions. :)

Enough babble, here's what you really wanted to see. Just don't laugh at me too much. I've already admitted it's not what I intended. But I still have high hopes for next time. Plus, I made everything but the shaping up myself (I did use the shaping from the R2D2 hat) so I figure I should get some points for that, right?