TL;DR: Which hat should come out next week?

Whichever hat comes out next week will be available both as a stand alone pattern and as part of a collection with the other hat, some matching mitts, and maybe at some point a cowl if I get excited (the other patterns will only be available as part of a set, not individually, because the admin on that gets too big real fast). Vote over here!

Ok, so, these two hats (and, erm, some matching mitts that I don’t think I’ve actually shown anyone much of) are done. Knit, written, photographed, edited, and ready to release. But because there are three pieces (with my brain still taunting me saying we need a cowl, so there might just be a fourth if I’m not careful), it slightly complicates things.

Putting them all up individually while also having them be available as a set makes most folks happy, but it causes an ongoing cascade of annoying administrative work that I am Simply Not Up For. (No really, it inevitably turns into a lot of messages from people who meant to buy one thing and bought another or who thought they wanted only one and then changed their mind or who thought they wanted the whole thing and then changed their mind. Plus it’s a huge hassle any time I update the patterns or the pattern listings. I’ve tried it, at length, in the past and stopped doing it for a reason. This is very much one of those things where I am not looking for suggestions, I’m simply saying ‘this isn’t something I am able to do, and so I will not be doing it.’)

Putting them up only as a set is by far the easiest option on my end, but it invariably makes someone who wants only one of them mad. (Which I understand. I really do. But I swear the absolute vitriol and level of entitlement that comes with a good number of this particular flavor of complaint is astonishing, and they have been the source of some of my most amusing group chats with friends where I vent about bad manners.)

So I have decided on a middle ground. I will make one (only and precisely one) of the patterns available individually next week. It will remain available as a stand alone pattern and will also be part of a collection. The other patterns will come out on the following weeks and will only be available as part of the collection. (And I’m gonna do something cool where the collection starts with just the one pattern and is less expensive, then the week after the next one gets added [everyone who has it gets an update] and the price goes up a bit, and the week after the next one gets added [and again, everyone who already has it gets an update] and we get to the final price. Which means anyone who buys it early gets all the patterns at a lower price, but I’ll explain all that later.)

But I cannot for the life of me decide which of the hats should be the one to get released first and be available on its own. So you get to pick for me!

Whichever one is winning at the end of the weekend will come out on Tuesday.* The other hat will follow along and be added to the collection the next week. The mitts will follow along and be added to the collection the week after that. And if (no promises on this one, it’s very much an if not a when) I end up doing a cowl, it will follow along and be added in due course.

But I need to know where to start! So vote and let me know!

*Caveat for ‘oh god oh god I get so nervous saying a specific date when I am but one single human person and the world is on fire and if I fall down a well or get eaten by a dragon between now and Tuesday of course plans will change.’ But all the pieces are lined up and ready for all three of these, which means I’m as sure as I can be while still acknowledging that Everything Is Very A Lot Right Now and weird shit seems to happen more than I’d like it to.