It’s Cold Out There! Time to Knit a Hat

I will freely admit that I’m not much of a hat person. I like knitting hats, I just don’t like wearing them that much. The exception might be this fisherman’s rib hat I knit recently, which is so squishy and stretchy it doesn’t feel like wearing a hat at all. We’ll see if I manage to keep wearing it through the winter.

I feel like I share a lot of hat knitting patterns (most recently this roundup of colorwork hats) but there’s always more to see, and knit hats are a great way to pick up new techniques.

For example, get practice twisting stitches on purpose with the Paradise Slouch Hat from Stacey Winklepleck. This free pattern on Knit Picks uses one skein of DK weight superwash merino, and has an extra wide twisted rib brim you can fold over or wear slouchy.

Use all your stash of leftover sock yarn to make a super cozy hat with Wool & Pine. The Bindle Hat uses four strands of fingering weight yarn held together using a modified Latvian braid technique. The brim is worked in the round and the body is worked flat, with short row shaping to give a good fit in the crown. Just writing about it makes me want to try it! You can find this pattern — sized for kids and adults — on Ravelry.

Try your needles at some simple cables with this cable knit beanie worked in worsted weight yarn from Jinxed Stitches Knits. This hat features a deep folded brim and easy cables, and you have the option of making a matching pompom when you’re done with the knitting.

Or if you’re ready to learn colorwork, try the bulky Isla Hat from Whimsy North with its simple chevron stripes. The pattern is charted but the design is pretty simple. It uses five colors and comes in four sizes.

I don’t know that there’s any special techniques involved in the Girlfriend Beanie from My Hooking Addiction. It looks like a pretty straightforward ribbed hat. But it uses my favorite colorway of Wool Ease Thick and Quick so I just had to share (see also my knit vest).

For the past few years I’ve taken part in a Christmas in July blog hop that encourages people to get a jump on their making for holiday gifts.

I love to use yarn I already have for these projects in the hope that people will consider what they already have that they can use to make projects for themselves or to give as gifts.

This year it was a couple of knit baskets made using partial balls of yarn left in my stash from other projects.

They use the same basic pattern but the first one is made with two colors of bulky yarn, and the second used two strands of worsted weight yarn held together, which made the gauge about the same, but I cast on fewer stitches to make a smaller version.

The bottom of the basket is square, though you can make them rectangular if you’d rather. Then I just knit up the sides in rounds until I was about to run out of yarn. This gave both baskets rather short sides — maybe more like a tray than a basket — but you can keep knitting as long as you like to make the sides of your basket as tall as you want.

They’re worked in seed stitch, which keeps the edges from curling and adds a nice texture to the baskets.

Of course this also allows you to use even more odd balls from your stash. I’d love to make a big one someday combining lots of different yarn. I mean, I’d probably use it to store more yarn, but that’s a fine thing to do.

As it is, these little trays are great for sitting on your desk or bedside table to hold little things that always seem to appear there. I like to use one to hold the supplies for whatever project I’m working on, things like little scissors, my tape measure, a crochet hook, etc.

And they would make good gifts on their own or as a container to hold some other goodies if you like.

You can find the free pattern for these stash busting baskets over at Our Daily Craft.

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