Too bad I didn’t think to take pictures of the hat before I felted it – when I put on the finished hat (before felting) I looked like the cat in the hat with this enormous thing covering my head down to my nose!

Last night I put the hat in a small amount of very hot water in my washing machine, agitated it for about ten minutes – and suddenly the hat was half the size, felted and it fit. I wrung it out in a towel, stuffed the top of the crown with crushed newspaper, and placed the hat over an inverted bowl to dry.

It’ll look good with my navy coat, my maroon corduroy jacket, and even my red parka! I’m now knitting another in red (with a contrasting band at the base of the crown from the yarn I used for this hat).

OK – here is the hat with a smile!