Hats, Hats, Hats

Earlier this week I looked at my blog and discovered that I hadn't posted since the end of October. I guess it's time for a New Year's (slightly used New Year) resolution to blog more regularly.

It's all Ravelry's fault. In the past several months, the time I would have spent blogging seems to have been gobbled up by Ravelry. Between updating my own projects and looking at other people's projects, it has become a real time sink. But what an amazing one!

This has been a dreadful winter in the Northeast, and as a result I have been on a hat knitting kick. It started with the Meret beret, which was a free pattern offered by Wooly Wormhead as part of a Ravelry KAL. I had just finished it when I suddenly needed a birthday gift for my sister-in-law, so I decided to give it to her and make another one for myself. Only this one I decided to give to a friend as a Chanukah present.

Meret was a well written pattern, and I enjoyed it so much that I bought Wooly Wormhead's book (despite her unfortunate name) Going Straight, a collection of 24 designs using a sideways construction method. The biggest problem was deciding which hat to make first!

The winner was Guimauve, a slouchy beret with an unusual, slightly-pointy shape, though the point is much less pronounced when worn than it is just sitting for a photograph.

Like the other two hats, I made this one from stash yarn – in this case Park Avenue, a now discontinued alpaca-merino blend by Lily Chin. Because the yarn is a heavier gauge than the pattern calls for, I needed only 8 repeats instead of 10. The fit is perfect.I may try the same hat again some time with a variegated yarn as it is shown in WW's pattern photo.

Another ball of Park Avenue was leftover from a sweater and too pretty to abandon, with just enough for a not-too-big hat, so I next tried Trinity. It was a good travel project – extremely portable and not too difficult. It was a little too small – wearable, but too small to be pulled down over both ears. After deciding not to wear it day after day, I decided to extend it by picking up stitches along the bottom and adding a brim. There wasn't quite enough Park Avenue left, so I added some green KnitPicks Wool of the Andes, which blended in perfectly. It is now my favorite hat.

On really cold days, my favorite is Strudel, for which I used Lavish Superfine Alpaca that was leftover from a shawl (a subject for another post). It is another nice warm hat, that fits well and covers the ears. The horizontal cables give it an interesting look, and it stays put even on windy days.

There are still several hat patterns in the WW book that are on my To Do list. Maybe next winter. (If this one ever ends.)