my new cable obsession - and I'm not talkin' t.v.

I have no idea where or when this started (well, some time last week). I NEEEEEEEDED to learn how to make cables. Now, to be quite honest, in the past year I've only knitted a pretty yellow dishcloth which I gave to my mom, BUT all of a sudden I needed to learn cables and needed to make cable things, so I searched the internet for a cable hat pattern. I rock at making crochet hats, but knitted ones? not so much. I like making things in the round and the only hats that I've made in knit were on straight needles, but I despise sewing things up. I don't like the seam. So anyhow, I borrowed Debbie Stoller's SNB knitting books from my local library, both of them just so I could learn how to make the basic cable beanie hat (or is it beenie? I think it's beanie). I gathered up all of my loose change and bought the right sized needles, well, it called for a sz 7 and 8 circular and size 8 dpn. I had dpn's sort of size 8 ish so I needed sz 7 and 8 circs. Don't you know that no one in my city / town / whatever had sz 7 or sz 8 16" circs. I tried JoAnns, Michaels, Walmart... I had to call AC Moore a few exits up the highway; they only had sz 7's. So, I got sz 6 and sz 7 because I figured that my knit tension is a little loose and it would be for the boy anyway, so I could go a little smaller.
Anyhow (actually, made two practice cable projects but more about that in a different post at some point.)

So, I started whipping up this bad-boy. Thes pics are close to the half-way point and are taken from my cam phone. I've since finished it (can you see bright lights and hear the 'aaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh' of angels? I can.) I'll post finished pics when I get to it...

The only thing that I don't like about knitting this hat in the round is that it is knit from the bottom up. I like making hats from the top down because you can try it on as you go and you'll know if you need to increase more for girth or continue with more rounds (in this instance of ribbing or of cables) for extra length because the original from the pattern is rather small / short. Way above eyebrow level. The only other modification that I made aside from the change in needle size was adding 4 more rows of ribbing. The pattern called for six rows, I think, and I knit ten rows of ribbing.

I got some woole-ease in gray and red and am planning on whipping out at least two more of these for xmas presents (MAYBE) we'll see. But, that's the plan.