I do have some FO’s to show, despite my many WIPs.
Caleb needed a hat for recess since it’s been so freaking cold and I really wanted to find one that had ear flaps. I took advantage of a promotion KnitPicks was having where they let you try a skein of their new bulky weight yarn Biggo and got a skein in forest heather. I decided to go with My Ears Are Cold! Pavillion Hat by Xandi Vermaas (she spelled it with two l’s so we’ll go with it.) The pattern itself was a bit cumbersome. I don’t know if it was because I knit the entire hat on dpn’s or if it was because there didn’t seem to be a repetitive part to the pattern. I had to go back an undo a lot of stitches a lot of times to get it right and I decided that Caleb wasn’t really a pom-pom kind of kid so I omitted those.
My mother-in-law jumped in on the “I need a hat” discussion Christmas day after my brother-in-law received his (sadly I didn’t take a picture of it!). I decided to use the other skein of Biggo in golden heather that I got and make the Saint Anthony Cable Hat by Heideh Sarfehjoo. (My husband has a different address so I could score two free skeins and not feel guilty). She wanted a soft warm hat to use when she went walking. This seemed like it would be perfect. I used 10.5 US needles but only ended up doing the cable pattern three times before starting the decreases. I just didn’t have enough yarn to finish the fourth repeat and the decreases. Luckily mother-in-law has short hair so it should fit fine. I added another round of knitting and another set of decreases at the top because 16 stitches to close up seemed like too many. I like the way it came out and she liked it too.
My brother’s girlfriend asked me to help her knit some hats for her grandmother who is undergoing chemo right now. I have lots of KnitPicks Crayon left over from when I was busy knitting baby blankets for my kids and others. The only problem with this yarn is that since the stitches are not very clearly defined, the nice patterns that are out there get lost. I had a look on Ravelry (what else) and used their super handy search tool to see what kind of hats people had made out of this yarn. I decided on Hurricane Hat by Andrea Goutier. It was a very easy and fast knit. Next time I would decrease the needle size after the ribbing to make it a little tighter. I used 4.5 US circulars and dpns the whole way through and the body of the hat is a little bigger than I wanted but I’m sure will do fine. It’s soft and warm which is ideally what you’re looking for in a hat.
(Can I just say thank goodness for my kids to model things?)
Family Purls 