I admit that when I opened this project’s box, I was both excited and a little apprehensive!

I had never worked a project in the round before, used circular needles, or used any decreasing stitches.  But I was eager to knit a hat and dug into the project.  This box comes with all the materials you need – two balls of yarn, a set of circular needles, a tapestry needle, a knit counter (which my dog tried to destroy), and instructions.  There is enough yarn to complete either a small or large hat.  I selected “large” for my project, though the instructions didn’t really indicate how large “large” is supposed to be.

I did struggle a little bit with using the circular needles and learning how to stitch in the round.  When I started the project around Thanksgiving, I could not find the circular needles tutorial on Knit-Wise’s tutorial page.  I checked last night as I was wrapping up my project, and the tutorial was there, so it’s possible I simply had missed it when I’d checked the first time.  There were also tutorials for the other decreasing stitches I hadn’t tried before.  These stitches (like k2tog) were much easier than I had anticipated!  Besides my initial struggles with using the circular needles, the rest of the project was a breeze.

I really enjoyed this box.  The simplicity of the project made these techniques very accessible to new knitters like myself.  And now I have a beautiful hat to wear!  Now if only the weather can drop below 80 degrees again so I can actually wear it…