Book Review: The Art of Knitting Hats

Hats are a great canvas on which to try just about any knitting technique. They’re relatively small and quick to knit, and everyone can use a hat, right?

Courtney Flynn shares 30 designs for colorwork hats in her book The Art of Knitting Hats, which is a good place to start if you’ve never knit hats before.

All of the hats are worked from the bottom up in the round and have charted colorwork designs that repeat across the circumference of the hat. They’re all worked in worsted, bulky or super bulky yarns. Sixteen of the patterns are rated easy and the other 14 are intermediate.

The patterns vary from geometrics and chevrons to flowers, trees and seasonal designs like acorns, skulls and hearts. Patterns have either one adult size or one adult and one child size.

Many of the patterns only use two colors, but there are some that use three or more (up to six, though some patterns have options for using more or fewer colors as you like). Some patterns are designed to be worked with multicolored or tonal yarn, while others do better with solids. The author encourages knitters to go their own way with color choices and view each hat as a work of art.

Each pattern includes a section of tips for visualizing your project and getting started, which is helpful if you’re not done a lot of (or any!) colorwork knitting before and you aren’t sure how to pick colors.

For instance the Bonfire patter, which uses a multicolored yarn for the background and a solid color for the flame motif, suggests picking a tonal yarn with red, orange and yellow hues for the background but says you could use cooler colors for a different look. She advises ensuring that your background color doesn’t include any of the color you pick for the design so that it will be easy to see and not bleed into the background.

The book includes an introduction to colorwork knitting including chart reading, yarn management and dealing with floats, so if you’ve never done stranded knitting before this book is a good place to start.

About the book: 176 pages, paperback, 30 patterns. Published 022 by Page Street Publishing Co. Suggested retail price $23.99.

Next Pattern:

I’ve shared a lot of Christmas stocking knitting patterns over the years (see posts 1, 2, 3 for example) but what if you want to knit a stocking for a non-human member of your family. If you’re looking for Christmas stocking knitting patterns for your cats or dogs, this is the post for you.

These large paw print stockings are perfect for either dogs or cats, so they’re great to knit if you have both. They are worked in the round using DK weight yarn, and the stocking measures about 17 inches/43 cm from the top to the heel. You can get the pattern from nicolaluke.

The K4 Project has a super cute Kitty Christmas stocking pattern, which is worked in worsted weight yarn. They also have a dog version, or you can buy both and get a discount if you have both dogs and cats to knit for. Both projects have two patterns, showing how to work the stockings flat or in the round.

Put your dog into a Christmas scene with this stocking pattern from ifanhourChild. It shows a dog in a dog house in the snow, and has room for the dog’s name at the top. It’s worked flat using worsted weight yarn and the pattern includes charts for many small and medium dog breeds (there’s a separate listing for bigger dogs) so you can stitch a dog that looks like yours.

Annie’s Woolens has both dog and cat stocking knitting patterns that are worked in worsted weight yarn in the round. You can change up the colors to suit your pet if you want, and they come with an alphabet chart for personalization. Or you can stick with holiday colors and buy a kit to make the dog or cat stocking.

Waiting for Santa Paws is a pattern from Kate Agner on Ravelry that would be cute for a dog or a cat. It looks like a leg with a paw print on the bottom part of the foot and more paw prints running around the top of the leg. This is a great option if you don’t want to mess with a heel turn because it doesn’t have a heel, because dogs and cats don’t have heels so why would their stockings?

Book Review – 20 to Knit: Tiny Christmas Toys to Knit

Book Review – Knit Christmas Stockings

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