on hats

My knitting manifesto continues…

I do not knit hats to keep my head warm.

I knit hats because they’re quick. Most hats, even complicated ones on tiny needles can be finished, with focus, in a few nights.

I knit hats because they can be simple enough for an absolute beginner and still be pretty and stunning. But try something more complicated, like cables or colorwork or intarsia, and you can challenge yourself and still have the thrill of accomplishment.

I knit hats because decreases swirling around the top of a hat please me. Decreases in perfectly straight lines please me. Hidden decreases in cabled or color stranded designs please me.

I absolutely love knitting hats.

I recently finished knitting a few hats.

The pattern is my own End of May hat. The construction is one of my favorites. Begin with a regular cast on and knit the lining for a few inches. After a purl round to fold the hem, you get right to the good stuff…colorwork on every round. The chart is wide, repeated only four times on each round. I love the result – flowery and bold.

The lining is sewn down after you’ve fastened off the last of the stitches at the top. I have tried securing the lining while knitting, but I think the seam is slightly less defined if you do it with needle and thread at the end. I like holding one color of yarn in each hand for colorwork (and that’s the method I teach in my Intro to Stranding class). The work progresses quickly and it is fascinating seeing the pattern emerge.

I used Berocco Ultra Alpaca for the original version of the End of May hat and the black/purple hat. The yarn is growing on me…it’s affordable, the colors are glorious, the drape, the hand! I highly recommend using the Ultra Alpaca for this pattern.

The green/gray hat above is Cascade 220. Nice, but not as nice as the Ultra Alpaca. For the lining of both hats, I used a scrap of the softest sport weight yarn I had lying around.

I need to knit another End of May hat in the same colors as the original because I gave the original away to be auctioned off in the Denali Education Center Annual Auction. (Yes, it was dumb to send away my original, but it was for a good cause!) I also sent along a Noro version of my Two by One corrugated ribbed hat. They were both purple-y and looked good as a pair – one adult-sized and one kid-sized.

My family long ago outgrew the need for hats to keep warm, but I’m knitting more hats. Always knitting more hats. I love knitting hats.

ETA: End of May on Ravelry, Two by One on Ravelry
Shop all my patterns on my patterns page.