I heart decreases

Until yesterday, everything I've ever finished had either been rectangular, with constant stitch count, or non-rectangular but growing every row. I'd never finished anything that ended by getting smaller. Enter the hat. When I dug it out of the ziplock bags I'd stuffed it and its yarn into last April, I'd left off a row or two before the row of picking up the hem. Picking up the hem was a pain (and made for a really wonky looking row before blocking), but the rest of the hat just flew by, especially the decreases in the crown. I really hadn't expected to finish anything this weekend, but I got the knitting and weaving in of ends done last night, and then this evening I added tassels to the earflaps. My only frustration is that the hat stretched when I blocked it, so it went from fitting perfectly to being a bit lose. I think I'm going to give it a trip through the dryer and see what that does for it. At worst, it will shrink it too much, and I'll have a hat that doesn't fit... as opposed to what I have now, which is a hat that doesn't quite fit.

Pattern: Flaps from Danish Earflap Cap and crown from Norwegian Star, both by Charlene Schurch; colorwork from Dale of Norway's St. Moritz, a combination of two charts.
Yarn: Falk by Dalegarn
On other fronts, the Lopi sweater is coming along, too. The sleeve that had languished since about last March as just half a sleeve is now a full, completed sleeve. So that leaves the other sleeve and the yoke still to do on that sweater. Pictures to come soon if I can think of a way to make heathered grey sleeves interesting.

Finally, a little bit about the Flying Squirrel. It's knit from Nashua Creative Focus Chunky, on size 10.75 needles. Every three balls produced four squares, so the total usage was 9 balls for the squares plus another ball and a half in black for finishing.