The Man Hat
My next knitting adventure was to try a hat, moving beyond the rectangular shape. A hat would give me the opportunity to decrease and use double point needles.
I was nervous about the outcome of this hat, so I wanted to use inexpensive yarn. Back to Webs I went. I picked up some Shetland wool yarn back in the warehouse again. I had checked out a bunch of knitting books from the library. One book (can’t remember which one) had a pattern for a man hat with a basket weave stitch. The wool I bought was too thin, so I used two strands. I thought I had the gauge correct and used size 9 circular needles. Things were fine until I got to the point that I needed to switch to double point needles. No one had shown me what to do with double points, so I kind of winged it. It felt very awkward. And by the time I finished the hat, it looked like it was made for a giant. Bill’s got a large head, but not that big. So I frogged it to reuse the yarn.
Now onto my second try. I searched the Web for free knitting patterns and came upon a site with some interesting things by Marnie MacLean. I chose the His Hat pattern with 1×1 ribbing and started over making a hat for Bill.
I worked two strands of the same yarn with size 9 circular needles again. The hat went smoothly and quickly. But now was the moment of truth; will it be the right size? Thankfully it was. And with the ribbing, it even worked well on Ella and Liam, just a looser fitting hat. The style seemed a little short for Bill. I wanted something that would cover his ears a little more. So I bought a new color of the same yarn and made the same hat with a few more rows added at the bottom. It turned out perfectly.
