One Friday last month I got an E-mail to say a place had opened up on the Sunday’s Hat Design Course with WoollyWormhead at ThisIsKnit. Boy, I jumped on that sucker as soon as I could. And then I did a little happy dance.

Then my sister got engaged and cue two days of hard-core Family drinking. (How dare she? I blames the BIL2B!)

So Sunday didn’t open pretty. Managed to get myself into town and round the back/front of Powerscourt townhouse. Squee’d over some lush goodies in the shop, especially some Coolree, which is new to the shop since I was there last in May, and then went upstairs to meet Woolly and make lust on her enormous piles of beautiful hats. Which we got to try on and see which suited the old noggins better. I’m sure I can wear anything, darlings, but none of them went very well with my bloodshot eyes.

We finally set down to the business of choosing what to make. I decided to go beret and made up a complicated stitch pattern. I needed to CO 60 sts. At which point I realised I had the shakes.

Six attempts later, I had JUST about got the thing going. Complicated stitch pattern had gone the way of the faeries and thankfully it was time for lunch. We all got chatting at a local eaterie (Calzone cafe) and Woolly was just so amazingly interesting. We heard a bit about her life as a designer, her little boy and the story of his first hat, and life in a double decker bus in a caravan site/artists commune in Italy.

Good food, company and some fresh squeezed OJ had me nearly human again, and when we got back, I could participate properly. Woolly helped me with figuring out the decrease rate for the crown and she gave us guidelines for grading. Her notes a great – concise but with a lot of information – plenty of stuff she’s gleaned over the years from designing. You can just up and run with it and design your own hats quite fearlessly, thanks to the way she’s put it all together.

So I did get a hat by the next day (only one of us got it done in the class). And best of all we got to see lots of Woolly’s upcoming or barely released designs.

And I’m getting me some Coolree next time I’m in Dub.