Daily hat

Hats are the ultimate knitting projects. They are small enough to fit in a pocket, they are usually knit in the round, they don’t have to be matched with a twin, you can experiment with difficult techniques without giving up and you can finish them within a week. Join me in my daily hat parade.

It all started with the Waiting for rain shawl I knit in November, from stashed and ripped handspun yarns. When I had finished it there was still yarn left, so I knit a hat. And another. And another. Suddenly I stand here with seven hats that I have knit during November and December from my stashed handspun yarns. That’s a daily hat for every day of the week.

Stranded knitting and Algae

The first hat I fell for was Algae by Marie Amelie designs. It’s a stranded colourwork hat with an algae pattern, which suits my daily dip in the lake perfectly. The folded brim together with the stranded colourwork keeps my head toasty and warm on even the coldest of days.

The original pattern is knit in a white main colour and yellow background colour. I chose three different background colors that on a sunny day resemble the colour of the water. I used all three of them in the Waiting for rain shawl.

The Algae hat has quickly become my favourite hat for this time of year. The folded brim is soft and gentle and I love the colour scheme.

Mindless ribbing hipster hat

I have knit a couple of hats for my husband, but they are all starting to fall apart. I wanted to knit him a new one, a fairly plain hat. The HipsterHat by PetiteKnit was my choice, together with a soft 2-ply yarn I spun ages ago from an Shetland Eskit fleece.

This was a mindless knit, just the 2×2 ribbing all the way plus some sweet decreases towards the crown. I love how the hat can be worn in different ways – straight, folded or double folded.

Arkanoid garter building blocks

I have always been curious about Woolly Wormhead’s hat patterns, so I searched among her hat designs. I wanted to knit something for my son who is an architect student. Woolly Wormhead calls herself a hat architect and the Arkanoid pattern resembles a brick Wall, so the match was perfect.

The yarn I used was a 2-ply finull yarn I spun a couple of years ago and dyed in an ice bath with fresh indigo leaves.

Greystone cables

My daughter has sensitive skin, so I used the softest handspun I could find for her, Swedish Jämtland wool. I had ripped this yarn from an older project. Since the yarn was so fine I held it double throughout the knitting.

I chose the Greystone hat pattern by Melissa Thomson (Sweet fiber), a fairly simple cable pattern. My daughter is quite picky, but I hope a subtle cabled natural white hat works for her.

Jessica Jones and linen stitch

Okay, so if a hat is called If Jessica Jones had a hat (by SMINÉ), don’t you just have to knit it? I know I do.

The hat is knit in linen stitch, which gives the loveliest weave-like structure. The pattern is knit one, slip one with the yarn in front, from bottom to top. This took ages. The moving of the yarn from back to front and back again slowed the pace down, but I do love the result. The yarn I used (the same yarn as in the brim of the algae hat) was very fine, so I held it double. I realized there was a risk there wouldn’t be enough yarn for the whole hat, so I started to think about what colour to use for the crown, but in the end there was just enough yarn.

Growing plants

I had a few skeins of gradient yarn from a brown fleece I had sorted into different shades. I wanted to use the gradient in another hat, and I chose the Gro hat by Fiber Tales.

I started at the brim with the darkest colour and ended two shades later at the crown. The pattern is sort of a cable pattern with grass-like plants. The pattern also includes knitting three stitches together right after a cable, which was quite cumbersome, at least the way I did it. So not the most comfortable and swift knit, but I love the design and my subtle gradient.

Shortrows and Rhinebeck

Another Woolly Wormhead design is the Rhinebeck hat, this time with an intricate bauble pattern made sideways with a gazillion shortrows. The pattern description looks daunting with its 88 row pattern repeat for 13 panels, but once you get the hang of it you can knit it with relative ease.

At first I was reluctant, I didn’t want it to look too loud. After having browsed through the projects on Ravelry I knew how I wanted to combine the colours. I chose blue-ish and brown colours for the baubles and white for the stripes to keep it all together. I love the result.

My plan is to hang the hats in the Christmas tree and let my family find them. Perhaps they go for the hats I had in mind for them, perhaps they surprise me. I’m keeping the Algae for myself, though.

Happy spinning!

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