Trying to Love Hats, or What I Have Been Knitting

You know I have been whining about knitting hats.  I have complained endlessly about not getting the nuances of making a well fitted hat.  I have even taken to calling knitted hats, hates.  But with Nietzche ringing in my ear, "Was uns nicht umbringt, macht uns stärker" or in English, "What does not kill us makes us stronger," I have knit on in the land of hats.

I fell in love with a be-tasseled hat pattern called Capucine, remarkably the first pattern written by a new knitter, (http://navlne.blogspot.com/2009/12/knitting-pattern-capucine.html) and decided as soon as I could I was making me one of those crazy toppers.  Anything with excessive tassels has to be mine.  I made three of these over the top things out of alpaca and alpaca blend yarns.  The pattern was fun and making tassels is never a chore so these were done in short order.  Granted I have only one head so wearing all three of them at time would be difficult so I am giving two of them away to people who I know will wear them with dignity and pride.  Or should I say with the crazy abandon those kind of tassels deserve.

I then had a Boho Beret pattern (http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/boho-beret) that I wanted to knit for a birthday present.  This pattern started with the yarn.  I had the yarn to match a scarf I made as a Christmas present (see not so straight scarf: http://tempestinapot.blogspot.com/2012/01/end-of-year-knitting-wrap-up.html).   Ravelry (my favorite social network) has an awesome feature where you can look at pattern suggestions for yarn and I found the Boho Beret design.  Again this pattern was some much needed fun knitting.  I really loved that the beret is wide at the top to accommodate big hair.  When I finished the beret I wanted to knit another one, but stopped myself with the thought that I will knit another one later.  I gifted this brightly colored beret and it was well received accept she wanted a pom-pom instead of a stem.  I had to tell my friend, I DON'T do pom-poms, ever.  You can quote me on that if you like.

Finally, last week with my three day weekend, I decided to treat myself to a hate, I mean hat, of my own.  I checked out a book from the library (my library, not the one I work for).  I was attracted to the title, Stashbuster Knits by Melissa Leapman.  The book was full of hints for projects of the stray ends of yarns.  One project was the Urban Knitser Slouch Hat.  I saw the pattern and thought hey I have some left over yarn from the Capucine-apalooza which would make a lovely Urban Knitser Slouch Hat.

I would like to say that knitting this pattern was fun and as the pattern says, "You can easily knock it out the morning of a bad-hair day."  Sorry Melissa Leapman, but that was just not the case for me.  It took three days and two trips to the frog pond of rippit out.  The size 9 needle band was too tight, and the size 10 needle too loose.  In the end I went with the 10 needle and decided loose was better than too tight.  I also used up my scraps and needed more so back to the bowl of scrap yarn I went and came up with a very bright top.  The hat turned great and with the cold weather I have worn it all week and loved it.  I wore the hat Friday to work with one of my tie dye t-shirts and a co-worker called me a hippie.  Yikes that was not really the look I was going for, maybe it was the t-shirt?  Okay, I hope it was the t-shirt and not the hat. 

When all is knitted and done, I am still going to call hats, hates, but I will say it with love.