Experiments in hat knitting.

Alice recently requested a south-american-andes style ear flap hat – a style that is all the rage right now. You know…the ski hats with the long braids down the sides and colorful stitch patterns made with thick, bulky wool (and are usually lined with fleece). So with my usual zeal I immediately concentrated all my energy and threw myself into replicating this hat. I became quickly obsessed and as chance would have it, stumbled upon a pattern called Thorpe by Kristen Kapur which I’ve been using as my starting point in this experiment.

My first version, knit with Patons in shades of blue that I had on hand using 10.5 needles and 72 stitches, came out too flimsy and too small. It might be ok for a child.

So I got a little more daring on my second version still in progress. For this hat I doubled the Patons, increased stitches to 80 (still on 10.5) and adapted a snowflake pattern that I found on the internet. I plan on omitting the garter stitch brim and shortening the ear flaps as the hat is already a tad long but I’ll be damned if I’m gonna rip it back again.

This is turning into a nice quick knit and I already have plans for a third. In my usual manic knitting MO, I have to make multiples whenever I’ve got a quickie project like this.  And it’s so lovely isn’t it?