Hats and hats.

I have a bit of a thing for hats. I always have. I have quite a collection of hats; glastonbury hats (a type of brimmed hat), ski hats, even a rabbit head hat (it even has big floppy ears)(and isn't made of rabbit). One Christmas I heard on the radio about a company which made unique beanies, you went to their website, picked the colours you wanted your hat, and bam, one of their army of grannies made it for you. The thing is, the hats are very expensive. At about £30 a hat, that seemed a bit much to buy on a whim.

So this is where my urge to learn knitting came from. My nans always knitted, my mum can knit, and my Little Nan used to try and teach me when I was little, so I knew I could do it. So I bought a book and started with the basics. I've made a scarf, wrist warmers, socks with no toes, one regular sock (I will get around to doing the matching one soon), baby bits and then I got addicted to making tiny toys. So, nearly two years after learning to knit and a conversation with a friend, I remembered why I wanted to knit.

Hat 1 - Etta

This was a fairly easy hat, it's got a really nice lacy sort of pattern, which once blocked opens up and  looks really good. I was just going to do it in the red, but as I was using an open ball of wool I didn't think I would have enough to do the whole hat in the single colour, but I think the red looks better next to the orange, especially as the orange isn't exactly solid, it's slightly variegated. I had a bit of trouble when  I started it because I've never been bothered to make tension squares before, so after a telling off from a knitting friend, I upped the needle size and it started to be the right size.

Hat 2 - Star crossed beret

I'd had this hat on my 'to do' list for a long time. It's got cables working their way around it, which give it a really nice, natural, organic feel. I'd not made anything with cables before, and one of the reasons I wanted to make this hat was that so many people that had made it recommended for beginners. This was also the first time I'd knitted on a circular needle (needles connected with a wire) rather than working on 3-4 short needles in a circle. I think it went really well, I was a bit worried there were holes by the cables, but they seem to have sorted themselves out during blocking.

I'm very pleased with my hats, I picked slouchy ones thinking they might be a bit more forgiving if I made a mess, but also I don't have any hats like that. And as they say in "A song of Ice and Fire": Winter is coming. So hopefully I won't have to wait too long to wear them out.