Without any intention on my part, 2020 is shaping up to be the year of the hat.

I recently traveled to Las Cruces, New Mexico. It was lovely, it was cold, and I lost my warmest hat in the shuffle.

Lucky for me, I know how to crochet, and I had just the ball of reclaimed yarn along with Eileen Tepper’s Crochet Newsboy Hat Pattern to right the enormous inconvenience of losing my best winter hat less than two weeks into winter.

With an 8.0 mm hat and a peony color bulky weight yarn from Brown Sheep Lamb’s Pride yarn, I got to work.

The last time I had made this pattern was in September of 2011, and in the intervening years, I had forgotten how to do one of the special stitches. All I could remember was that there was something about it that was a little bit tricky.

Even after reading the directions, I could not recall the trick, and my link to the “how to” video wasn’t working, so I texted the designer, Eileen, and told her I had a crochet emergency.

Fortunately, she was able to send me the link, and I was able to get back on track. I also took a moment to re-read the directions to find out what my mistake had been and found it. All I can say is, if you don’t have a friend you can text about your “crochet emergency,” reading the directions step-by-step in their entirety can be a good substitute.

Having remastered the stitch, I got to work; I was soon done with the second round:

But I also had errands to run, so I put everything in my bag and headed out the door. Two errands later, I was able to resume work on the hat, and nearly finished the fourth round:

And because it was cold out, I was inspired to just keep working, and I almost–but not quite–finished the hat:

Once I am done with my new go-to crochet newsboy hat, I will resume my search for the yarn I know I have somewhere, so I can finish yet another crochet Viking hat, which will firmly set me on course to make 2020 the year of the hat.