In June I joined a new team at work. July brought moving to a new apartment and adopting Gnocchi, a small brown entropy generator / cuddle sausage. While these were all awesome changes, their arrival in parallel was challenging and I dropped crafting over the summer. I started out with something simple (crochet) to get back in the groove, which was a very solid choice.
Pattern: Worn This Way hat by Wool and the Gang; knit in black Ra Ra Raffia. I made a small mod where I converted the eyelet rows into solid crochet.
Lessons: My attitude toward swatching is something like Gollum: "We should really make a swatch... BUT WE HATES SWATCHING." It would have been helpful for this pattern. Hats are chronically too small for my monster noggin, so I did an extra round of increases. But with my loose-ish tension the hat was working up too large so I had to frog back to the increases.
Crunching the raffia up made it more pliable and nicer to crochet with.
What I'd do differently: If I work with this fiber again (or really any unusual fiber) I'll grudgingly do a test swatch.
Try experimenting with wet blocking and stiffening spray to get the brim less wavy.