Hat Season

Knitted Slouchy Hat with Color Changing Flowers

I have been knitting a lot of hats lately. I think it is because it is hat season, or maybe I just wanted to knit up a few patterns that caught my fancy. I have found hats to be one of the most difficult things to get right and I have complained about them before (http://tempestinapot.blogspot.com/2012/02/epic-knitting-failure-or-29th-of.html).  It is always the band I have a hard time getting right, they are either too tight or mostly too loose.  I have gotten smarter using a smaller size needle than the pattern suggests, which helps, but I still jokingly call them hates.

The Lovely Leana Hat

2 of the 3 turned out better than expected, but one require some extra effort on my part.  The Jacques Cousteau hat (https://www.dropbox.com/s/y8op4ctr9gip44c/JC%20Hat.pdf?dl=0) was a straight forward ribbed hat, which knitted up really nice once I got the gauge right.  The Cousteau hat was gifted to a friend and I am hoping it is keeping his head warm.  The Leana hat was knitted up with this great yarn called Leana by Schachenmayr.  I love how it striped up and the band is perfect on this hat.  I kind of love how this hat looks on me.  The third hat was a pattern I picked up on the yarn crawl last summer at the Bead Place in Illnois.  The gimmick with this knitted slouchy hat is the crocheted flowers turn colors.

Jacques Cousteau Hat

The knitted slouchy hat was a little bit of a challenge.  The band had a weird construction which included a hem and was still too loose.  Some carefully placed elastic made the band fit.  The original pattern had one crocheted flower, but I had enough yarn and crocheted 2 more.  The flowers with the buttons made the hat kind of heavy, but again the elastic did the trick.  I feel kind of over the top in the hat, but you know what I kind of like that feeling.

Crochet Flowers Turn Lavender in the Sunlight