Trish Knits.com

I bought this hat quite a number of years ago at a local craft fair. The lady who sold it to me said it is made of plain old Red Heart yarn and it is crocheted. I loved it so much I immediately set out to emulate it, hence my start of the love of making hats! I never quite achieved the same thickness with the hats I tried, but I never used Red Heart, either. Perhaps if I had used a stiffer yarn and even smaller hook. It is made with two strands together.

Well, I don’t crochet anymore and I have yet to find a knitting pattern that produces this stiff of a fabric without felting. But I am going to try to do it. I am sure it can be done.

I like this hat because it spent about the last 5 years crumpled up at the bottom of our family hat and glove crate in the hall closet. A few punches and it pretty much went right back in shape. My felted hats, on the other hand, need another trip in the hot sink to be wearable again. (This year they got balled up in the hat crate… sigh…)

The first question is of course how to attain the flat top shape, which requires a bit more thought with knitting than with crochet. I posted yesterday to two of my knitting communities, KnitTalk and KnitHatsNow. I’ve received quite a few tips so far.

• Linda suggests that I knit an I-cord tube of 8 stitches until the stitches don’t have a ladder anymore, then switch to working yarn and begin increasing in multiples of 8 stitches. Depending on how and where I do the increases, the top of the hat could look like a spiral, or it could look like a wheel with spokes. I’ll have to see which I like.
• Carol pointed me to a pattern online for a hat with a brim. This one doesn’t quite have the shaping I want, but it is a cute hat!
• Rita pointed me to Emily Ocker’s Cast On, illustrated by Theresa Stenersen, whose Techniques with Theresa articles are a staple at Knitty.com. This cast on looks really helpful for the type of hat I am planning to try and I think I will use this technique. Theresa’s articles and tips are always so clear and I love them.

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• Bonnie then mentioned this round pinwheel blanket pattern by Genia. Wow, the knitting world is small — Genia is the kind lady who taught my daughter Diana to knit. This pattern shows another way to do the increases to achieve a flat circle.

Wow, so many options! Of course. Knitting is like that. That way, there are many ways of achieving a desired result, so I will play around and see what works best for me. Thanks, everyone! (Sorry for the blurry photos; it was my first attempt at doing a self portrait, a la Wendy Johnson, by staring in the bathroom mirror. My mirror glass is very wavy!)