The last hat that I worked on for the S.E.P. is the Grey Silver Hat.
The main body of the hat is worked in the round in a textured ribbing pattern with slipped stitches. It is a very simple design, worked in a DK weight yarn in a blend of luscious alpaca and merino held together with a lace strand of mohair silk yarn. It is shiny, a bit heavy and super soft to the touch. The color of the yarn is an elusive dark grey with blue-purple undertones. Quite hard to capture with the camera, but really beautiful in person.
The knitted fabric features some elasticity, but not too much. The brim of the hat is wide with lot’s of positive ease.
I contemplated for a while on how to work with this hat. The yarn it is worked with is very luxurious and beautiful and I wanted to avoid “hiding” it behind any additions or modifications. I quickly dismissed the idea of pleating or smocking, because both of these techniques would impact the fit of the hat negatively; it would become too narrow.
Therefore I went stash diving to search for yarns that match (at least) in color. I ended up finding silk mohair lace (again!) in shades from absolute black to bright silver. I played around with these yarns, mostly stitching on the hat. There were several tries before I ended up with two methods, which I liked the most.
First, I extended the brim edge with a simple single crochet border. The interesting aspect of this element are the colors. I combined the silk mohair yarns, lined up by color from darkest to lightest, and worked the rounds by holding them together. For the first round I used a strand of black, a strand of dark grey and a strand of silver. On the second round, I switched the black with a grey shade and on the third round I used only the silver and two lighter greys.
This sequencing created an interesting, blended, gradient effect. It was the first time for me practicing such a technique and it was super fun. It fueled many more ideas I could try out, even with black! (I never worked with black!!).
The second technique I applied was embroidery. I took the same silk mohair yarns and held them all together. I cut long enough strips of each color and by holding them together, used them as a single embroidery thread. I worked a simple stem stitch, diagonally, over several stitches in an effort to create a zig-zag chevron pattern. I worked a single round of these stitches just above the brim.
With these two methods, I could achieve the following:
a) leave the majority of the hat untouched and let the original yarn shine,
b) adjust the fit of the brim by adding a crochet edge that provides stability, but most importantly narrows the circumference (decreases were incorporated),
c) added some visually interesting details.
In conclusion, I am pretty happy with this modification. It was an interesting journey out of my comfort zone, and most importantly, it was FUN!
The Grey Silver Hat is now available for purchase in my e-shop. 
