hats ~

I finally took photos while the sun was shining today. Here are some hats that I finished up in January during a snow storm ~ who'd think we'd still be needing hats due to snow in March!

Both these hats were completed with my "just knit" technique. That means.....grab some old yarn from the stash and knit whatever way that just happens.

So with the hat below, I started with the cable band ~ I knit a narrow cable and kept wrapping it around my head to see if it was long enough. When it was, I grafted the ends together.



Then I knitted up stitches around one edge of the band with a second color and started to knit. I knew I didn't want to do cables all the way up the hat, so I decided on some travelling stitches. I also knew I wanted the hat to have some stretch so I played with the idea of ribbing with a travelling stitch ~ this is how it ended up.

After finishing, band to crown, I knitted up stitches from the other side of the band and tossed in a twisted/braided band that I learned from the Anna Zilboorg books.

To give the hat enough length from the band down over my ears, I just knitted a loose 2/2 rib. I absolutely hate hats that are tight across my ears and forehead, so the hat does end up looking like a triangle a bit (see the first picture above). At least it doesn't squeeze my head tight.

These two photos are the finish hat pulled over a basket that i found out is about the same size/shape as my head ~ small and square.

And the next hat was created to use of more odds and ends in the stash. I can't help myself from picking up second-hand yarn, and I never toss out any scraps of my handspun. So this bigger hat has Brownsheep yarn, some alpaca (purple), alpaca/wool blend (deep mauve), and handspun Crosspatch Creation (with the bright pink).

Again I started with the cabled band in light grey. Same technique as above ~ knit til it fits around my head.

Then I knitted up stitches on one side of the band and knitted the braided band. From there I kept knitting up the crown.

I must have been really eager to use up different scrap yarn, since I ended up stranding six different colors/types of yarn up the crown. I had to fudge here and there to get the dark stripe to look relatively balanced, but who ever said that you HAD TO HAVE the same number of stitches everywhere? Hey man, as long as it fools the eye and looks balanced, right?!

Okay, so the center top isn't completely balanced...I'll wear really high heels and no one will see the top of my head/hat!

Once again, I knitted up stitches on the other side of the band and did another braided band. Trying to be clever, I switched directions and pointed the braid the opposite direction (my cleverness did not enhance the hat!). From the braid, I just stranded and knit down enough to cover my ears. I wanted a loose edge again, so ended up doing some knit rows and purl rows to get it to curl a bit put not roll up tightly.

So those are a couple of recent hats. There were three others, but they have all found new homes.