Several weeks ago, I bought (v. inexpensively) four skeins (the REMAINING four in the sort of oatmealy color) of Rowan's "Cork" from Elann, simply because I wanted to try it out. (Most of the time, most places, Rowan yarns are too expensive for me. I have a funny tolerance level for cost...there are things I CAN afford but just can't see paying the price for, and Rowan yarn is generally in that category). Anyway. I didn't know for sure what to make of it (I was thinking scarf at the time). But then I remembered a "historical" pattern:

Sarah Bradberry's version of the Monmouth cap.

(For PBS fans: this is the hat popularized on the series where modern day folk were sent to live colonial village style. No, I don't remember the name of the character who wore it. I got fed up with the series because it seemed there was so much sniping and so much unwillingness to enter into the spirit of the thing that it made me sad and I stopped watching)

And it turns out the yarn should work up to just the right gauge! I'm probably going to go the button route rather than the i-cord - probably I'll crochet a small circular disk and attach that as the "button." There are other discussions/pattern suggestions out there for these hats if you search, but this is the first one I remember seeing.

I have easily enough to make the hat, and either make a shorter scarf, or a pair of mitts and a second hat, or three more hats, given the amount I have. Not that I know three other people who NEED a Monmouth cap....but I could perhaps be persuaded. Or maybe I'll make a hat and mitts, and make a second or second and third hat with the remaining yarn and send them off to Dulaan project or somewhere...although it's culturally odd to contemplate a 21st century Mongolian wearing a 15th century style northern European hat.

Incidentally, for the at-least-one non-knitter who glances at this blog and who is probably wondering what the H is up with me making 57 hats and 28 scarves and 22 bazillion pairs of socks, especially considering as I live in the American South where it's almost never cold, I would paraphrase Calvin and say that it's really not the having, it's the making. Although the having does enter into it somewhat, or I'd be giving everything I made away to charity...