Two New Hats

On Saturday I took my daughter to a birthday party for one of her friends at Michael's craft store. It was nice, and she enjoyed it a lot. The staff led the children to make two take home crafts during the party: a birdhouse and a magnetic wooden notepad holder-thingy. But it wasn't until I got to our next destination after the party that I realized I had left my hat at the store! It was the loom knit hat that I had made over a year ago. I was a little bummed out about it, but of course it was the perfect excuse to make a new hat to replace it.

I planned to make another blue one, but I had been wanting a brown one to match a brown coat that I wear every winter. I made the brown hat first, using the round green loom and Hometown USA Billings Chocolate, which I double stranded with Sugar 'n Cream Warm Brown. This was a good combination because the colors are so similar. The Hometown USA is super bulky acrylic and the Sugar 'n Cream is Medium (4) Worsted Cotton. I knit the two strands together using a 1 over 1 stockinette stitch for 12 rows, then added the brim. Then I knit for another 19 rows, cast off with a yarn needle and cinched it closed.

Done in about 1.5 hours, but it took a little longer because I stayed up late watching the 1968 movie musical Oliver!, which used to be one of my favorite movies. It was the letterbox version with all the intermission and extra music included. I wore the hat to church the next day, with the brown coat.

On Sunday I decided I didn't want to wear my nice brown hat as an everyday hat, so I rummaged through my stuff and found my Hometown USA San Diego Navy yarn, mixing it with some dark blue yarn I had in the stash. This time I completed the hat in about 1.5 hours, and have been wearing it every day since.

Just as well, since the warm Spring weather is taking its time about getting here this year!

Men's Hats

Here are 3 men's hats that I made in Nov-Dec 2010. I used the round green loom to make all of them. The first one is a tri-color hat which I made to match a scarf I had knit the year before:

I used Homespun Tudor, Black, and Colonial, 1 over 2 e-wrap stitch, using the traditional method to make the hat and attaching the brim while knitting.

The second hat I made based on the pattern for the garrison hat I knit before (http://loomdude.blogspot.com/2010/05/for-all-veterans.html ), all with 1 over 2 e-wrap stitch:

Front:

Back:

Instead of making the hat flat on top, I made it round like a regular hat. I simply knit the body of the hat first, then knit the brim separately. I positioned the brim the way I wanted it to look on the hat, fastened it to the hat using yarn needles (though you could probably used safety pins or other knitting needles) and then carefully sewed it the bottom of the brim to the bottom of the hat using a yarn needle and Homespun black. Then I sewed a row of Homespun Shaker around the top edge of the hat brim, attaching the brim to the hat as I sewed, and removing the yarn needles I had placed for positioning. As you can see, I wasn't fanatical about the line I made with the Shaker yarn being perfectly straight. After all, I knit it a little loose so it could stretch when the hat was worn; otherwise it would probably feel tight around the head in that area.

Finally, I made another hat based on a hat that I knit for myself in 2009. I used Hometown USA San Diego Navy and another dark blue yarn I had that was gauge 4. I double stranded the yarn and knit 1 over 1 e-wrap stitches, attaching the brim during the process. The brim on my hat was much wider (about 3"); this brim is about 1.5"-2".

Unless you look closely you will not see the variation in color between the two yarns I used. I decided to knit it this way because when I only used the San Diego Navy yarn and knit 1 over 1, it left gaps which I knew the wind would easily get through. Using the two gauges of yarn together double stranded helped solve this problem, though on an extremely windy day you will still feel the air blowing through momentarily. I've used this hat outdoors and it is heavy enough to make me sweat if I'm shovelling snow or playing with my daughter, so I usually only wear it when it's below 40 degrees.