Oh What A Difference ...

A day (or two) makes. Thank you for all the well wishes for my injured digit. The swelling has gone down and I am almost back to 100%. Your suggestions of chocolate, delegation of household duties, and most importantly ... adult beverages seemed to do the trick. Did all of you stay at a Holiday Inn Select?

I did finish my hat before I decided to do flip over my back seat ...

I followed the direction for the Durango hat through row 12 and used a H hook. My intent was to finish the band following the modifications that Simple Beans made ... my gauge was way off (no I did not do a test swatch ... what kind of crocheter do you think I am. jeesh.) so the band would either covered my eyes or I would have had to wear the hat like a crown! I decided to improvise. My first thought was to follow Simple Beans instructions but only chaining 4 (vs 8) cutting the band in half. About 4 rounds into it I was worried I would run out of yarn. I ripped out what I had done and decided to do 3 rows of single crochet instead. I did all three rows on the 'wrong side'. First row single crochet, second row I only looped through the loop facing me (vs both loops of a normal single crochet - I don't know how else to describe this - sorry!), and the last row single crochet. I liked how it turned out. Doing the band this way tightened it up a bit; it is nice and loose on top (read - only slight hat head hair) but snug around the band.

I've been happily wearing it every day!