Waaaaay back in the day I wrote a post about finally knitting a really good hat which was kind of a big deal because I had some problems with hats from the get go. I could never seem to knit one that fit properly or that didn't look ridiculous on me and I had pretty much given up the whole hat ghost because I rarely even needed a hat anyway since we lived in Houston. But one strange winter it got super cold (Houston cold, that is, which means it was below freezing for more than a few hours.) I really needed a hat and so did Mr. Boy so I gave it one last go and it came out fabulous and that was my one hat that I ever needed and the one hat that Mr. Boy needed and I thought I'd probably never need to bother with hats again.
However, now we live in Chicago and pretty much every day is a hat day (at least for me, so far) so I knew I needed to really master this hat thing and I needed to do it quick! My old faithful, which by the way is a perfectly lovely hat, was not going to cut it, I quickly found out. It was fine for a (what Midwesterners call) chilly day, but once that wind started blowing it was laughably inadequate. What I needed was a Very Warm Hat and that's ultimately what I found via Ravely and Elizabeth Zimmerman.
Seriously thank goodness for Elizabeth Zimmerman and her genius problem solving knitting mastery.
So this looks like a pretty unimpressively boring hat, right? But there's a secret to it...
It's two hats in one because it's reversible and it's double thickness!
This is really exciting for me for two reasons:
1- It's Very Warm
2- I can use a non-itchy but still very nice, warm yarn for one side of it so that it doesn't itch me like it's made out of fire ants.
That second reason is really a big deal for me because as much as I love the warmness of wool, it just itches me like nothing else in this world. And dry skin and hair is a serious thing here, y'all. Day after day of cold windiness means that keeping moisturized is a serious challenge. That's why even though this hat is technically reversible and I could wear the black side or the variegated side, I never do. It is always worn variegated side showing because the black yarn is silk and bamboo and it never, ever itches me even the slightest bit and that makes me want to do a happy dance whenever I wear this hat and I wear it a lot.
Now unfortunately this hat is not a free pattern, which is what I really like to present in my blog, but here's the secret to the hat. You can really use any hat pattern and do the same thing. It's as simple as knitting a hat, then picking up stitches around the brim and knitting another hat just like it. Now you know the secret to Very Warm Hats.
You're welcome.
This is Mr. Boy modeling the hat for me. His head is, strangely, only slightly smaller than mine.
Y'all will probably be seeing lots of hats from me because knitting hats is now one of my favorite things to knit (now that I know that my head is actually child sized and every pattern I use must be modified for that fact) and I have loads of scrap yarn to get through. I know for sure I need at least one more like this one, and I'm working on one for Mr. Boy now.
Details about yarn, needles, etc here.
However, now we live in Chicago and pretty much every day is a hat day (at least for me, so far) so I knew I needed to really master this hat thing and I needed to do it quick! My old faithful, which by the way is a perfectly lovely hat, was not going to cut it, I quickly found out. It was fine for a (what Midwesterners call) chilly day, but once that wind started blowing it was laughably inadequate. What I needed was a Very Warm Hat and that's ultimately what I found via Ravely and Elizabeth Zimmerman.
Seriously thank goodness for Elizabeth Zimmerman and her genius problem solving knitting mastery.
This is really exciting for me for two reasons:
1- It's Very Warm
2- I can use a non-itchy but still very nice, warm yarn for one side of it so that it doesn't itch me like it's made out of fire ants.
That second reason is really a big deal for me because as much as I love the warmness of wool, it just itches me like nothing else in this world. And dry skin and hair is a serious thing here, y'all. Day after day of cold windiness means that keeping moisturized is a serious challenge. That's why even though this hat is technically reversible and I could wear the black side or the variegated side, I never do. It is always worn variegated side showing because the black yarn is silk and bamboo and it never, ever itches me even the slightest bit and that makes me want to do a happy dance whenever I wear this hat and I wear it a lot.
Now unfortunately this hat is not a free pattern, which is what I really like to present in my blog, but here's the secret to the hat. You can really use any hat pattern and do the same thing. It's as simple as knitting a hat, then picking up stitches around the brim and knitting another hat just like it. Now you know the secret to Very Warm Hats.
You're welcome.
Y'all will probably be seeing lots of hats from me because knitting hats is now one of my favorite things to knit (now that I know that my head is actually child sized and every pattern I use must be modified for that fact) and I have loads of scrap yarn to get through. I know for sure I need at least one more like this one, and I'm working on one for Mr. Boy now.
Details about yarn, needles, etc here.
