Book Review: Knit Hats with Woolly Wormhead

Woolly Wormhead is known for her fun and colorful hat knitting patterns, and 22 of her designs are collected in Knit Hats with Woolly Wormhead.

The patterns are arranged by size/gender: 5 for kids, 5 for men and 12 for women. But of course women would be happy to wear the “men’s” hats, and some of the women’s hats would be great for guys as well. (Having written books I totally understand needing to have some kind of organizing conventions, but it’s still worth noting a lot of these patterns would be nice for a variety of heads and the patterns all give a wide range of sizes.)

The designs are often not what you’d consider traditional. They’re often worked from side to side rather than top down or bottom up. There’s a lot of colorwork, lace, cables and textured knitting.

But if you’re going to knit hats they might as well be fun, right?

Some of my favorites include Scourie, a side to side colorwork pattern with a sort of leaf-shapes design; Chevron, a beanie with a zig-zag textured stitch; and Wychavon, a Garter Stitch hat with a brim that folds up and is held in place with buttons.

You can check out all the projects on Ravelry.

Hats are fun to knit because they don’t take a lot of yarn or time and are a great way to play with new techniques. You will definitely find some new to you options in this book and have a good time keeping everyone’s head warm.

About the book: 136 pages, 22 patterns, paperback. Published July 2021 by Stackpole Books. Suggested retail $24.95.

Next Pattern:

Using your yarn stash is important to me throughout the year, but as I start to feel the end of the year coming on I get more excited about using things I already have in the house. Maybe that’s because I don’t want to go to a store in the thick of holiday shopping times, or I like the idea of having a little space in my stash when the new year rolls around.

It’s super satisfying to use up all the little odd balls you’ve made over the year (or years), and I have several stash busting blankets I work on when it’s cold and will maybe finish someday.

If you’d like to start a stash busting project that’s perfect for using up odd balls, check out the Soukish pattern from Neisha Abdulla. This pattern is made for fingering weight/sock yarn, and it’s worked in a tube with allover color work.

This is great for a couple of reasons. You don’t really have to weave in your ends when you can hide them in a tube (this is one time you might even get by just tying a knot when you change colors!) and you can change colors whenever you run out of yarn and it will look good.

Of course the pattern is made with blocks where the designer changed colors, but you can change yours more or less often as you need to make it work for your stash. You can use blank charts to design your own color combinations, or even your own stitch patterns if you like. You can also adjust the length of the scarf as needed or turn it into a cowl based on the amount of yarn you have.

This project looks like a lot of fun and would be a great thing to have on hand to stitch up and then to wear during the cold, gloomy months.

You can get a copy of the pattern on Ravelry.

[Photo: Neisha Abdulla]

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Next Pattern:

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