Another Easy Ponytail Hat Pattern

Did you get in on the ponytail hat or messy bun hat knitting craze? Right around Christmas there was a big rush in popularity for these hats that are open at the top so that your bun or ponytail can hang out of the hat while keeping the rest of your head warm.

Knits’ End has a new version of the ponytail hat knitting pattern that’s super easy even for beginning knitters. Because it is worked flat, you don’t have to deal with DPNs or circular knitting (though you do have a seam to sew). There is still a little bit of decreasing at the top, but not much, and it’s as easy as can be.

You could probably knit one of these in an afternoon of movie watching, and there’s still plenty of winter left in a lot of the world where you could use a new hat, right?

[Photo via Knits’ End.]

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I don’t even know what to say about this amazing knitting pattern. The Bestiary Scarf from Monstra & Mirabilia is so full of details it’s a little intimidating to talk about.

It features, as the designer describes it, an “artistic encyclopaedia of Western mythical creatures.”

The pattern includes a dragon, harpy, Medusa, chimaera, centauress, phoneix, kraken, mermaid, sew serpent, cyclops, wyvern, Pegasus, amphiptere and amphibaena. (It’s a good thing there’s a photo of the proejct with everything labelled because I definitely didn’t know the names for everything.) It’s also designed like a landscape, with water and land creatures toward the bottom ends and sky creatures toward the top.

The dragon is at the center and is worked sideways so it will show as upright when you wear it.

The scarf is worked in double knitting, so the colorwork appears in the opposite colors on the other side.

It’s worked in light fingering weight yarn (on size 0 US or 2mm knitting needles) and the colorwork is shown in charts. The pattern also includes some video tutorials and written instructions to help you along. The designer says the pattern is for intermediate knitters, and “advanced beginners may succeed with patience and the help of the video tutorials.”

When I was an advanced beginner this kind of a pattern would have brought me to tears, but if you love a challenge, and a project that you’ll wear and get tons of astonished reactions every time, this is the project for you. And of course if you have a few double knitting projects under your belt and are comfortable reading charts, this project shouldn’t be hard, but that doesn’t mean it’s fast. But lots of great things take time, and that’s never stopped us before, right?

You can get a copy of this pattern from Monstra & Mirabilia on Ravelry.

[Photo: Monstra & Mirabilia ]

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