#50 On The Needles

#50 of 100 is on the needles (barely).  My goal is to complete the 100 different hats from 100 different patterns in two years.  That means that I need to finish the 50th by the end of this month to stay on track.  It is on the needles but my hat knitting has come to a grinding halt as I frantically try to finish my Christmas knitting in time.  It is a plain, simple pattern with a cascade 220 superwash brim and a liberty wool body to the hat.  That should be fast?

But, I have a chronic problem when it comes to knitting.  I always think that I can knit much faster than I actually can and that I have a lot more time in my life to devote to knitting than I do.  It happens every single time and yet I never learn!  You would think that I would at least have a second of hesitation, but I don't.  I am so deep in denial this Christmas, that I won't even take stock of what is left to knit because the answer scares me.  So, we'll see if #50 actually gets finished in time because it is at the bottom of the priority list and that list is long…too long.

My holidays have been turned upside down by family changing plans.  It is all for the better and will be a lot of fun.  Everything is crammed into a smaller time line, with more people and more locations.    It makes panic bubble up inside me periodically.  I keep trying to remind myself that the very best thing I can do is spend time with people I love and all of the rest really doesn't matter.  If I keep that attitude (and I hope I do), I'm afraid #50 may have to wait until 2014.

2013 Picture of 528 Hats

Announcing the Ships for This Year

This message from Lynne…

Great news ... with Shanti's assistance, we have selected two frigates that are currently deployed. The USS Rentz is off the coast of South America and the USS De Wert is in the 5th and 6th fleet areas of responsibility (Middle East and Mediterranean). Both ships have 220 - 240 sailors on board and are very excited about being our ships of choice for 2013. These numbers mean that we have just about the right number of hats available this year. 

Great job everyone. You are going to make a lot of sailors happy this year.

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

They are arriving every day!  These are the hats that have arrived over the last week or so.  Aren't they beautiful!

Do you know Lynne?

November Deadline
First things first, don't forget our deadline is fast approaching.  Hats need to be mailed to me, Sandra, on or before November 11th.  If you do not have my address, please email us at hatsforsailors@gmail.com.

Do you know Lynne?
There are so many amazing and wonderful aspects of being involved with Hats for Sailors.  One of the best is getting to know so many of you.  We all have many facets to our lives, including Lynne.  Most of you know her as Shanti's mommy.  If you haven't read it before, Signature Needle Arts profiled her on their blog awhile ago but it is worth mentioning again for any of you that don't know her.  Here is the link.

It is good to look back at how we started and the two amazing women who had this idea and made it happen.

Stalled at #41

I think I have always had this problem.  I'm not sure if it is because I have a short attention span or that I am a procrastinator.  Either way, it has negatively impacted my hat knitting over the past couple of weeks.  As you already know, I am trying to knit 100 different hats from 100 different patterns.  I plan on achieving this in 2 years, which is basically a hat a week.  In order to stay on track, I need to have completed at least 50 hats by the end of the year.  I was on #41.

I also seem to have great difficulty limiting the number of projects I have on my needles.  I spend a lot of time knitting and I rotate through my projects, spending a little bit of time on each.  Eventually I finish most of them.  Sometimes projects have sat around long enough that it is like discovering it all over again and it motivates me to finish.

I seem to be having problems sticking to my point (which is part of my problem)!

I started a new hat from a great pattern that is perfect for when I need mindless knitting.  I also chose a wonderful, plain yarn.  The problem is that I had a mindless knitting pattern with mindless yarn and no time that required mindless knitting.  To add to that, all of my other projects seemed to be at that same mindless stage.  As a result, that hat just sat in the pile and I couldn't bring myself to work on it.  Even worse, I started looking around for something interesting to do.  It was like I moved into a place of magical thinking. " Oh, look at that beautiful sweater, I am sure I can whip out a tunic length cabled sweater in a week or two just working on it part-time!"  (I couldn't finish a hat and I thought I could knit a sweater?)  I spent a lot of time flirting with other patterns and yarn and feeling guilty for not paying attention to that hat.

Finally, I forced myself to work on THAT hat, even if it was just a few rows at a time.  It started to grow much faster than a sweater would have.  Once it got to the point that I could put it on my head to check the sizing, I realized that it is a great hat and my motivation came back.  It was quickly finished.  It IS a great hat.  Now I am on to the next one.  This new one has cables.

I am trying very hard to stay focused on our November 11th deadline!  But, do I hear Christmas knitting calling?

A Few Changes

We have been making a few changes at Hats for Sailors.  You have probably noticed.  Our banners have changed, both here and on Ravelry.

We have a new logo that we are using in lots of places including a button.  You may have noticed the button in a picture of yarn from last week's blog.

There is a lot of discussion on Ravelry.  And a lot of inspiration in both our WIP and FO discussions.  I have a lot of new ideas for my 100 hat patterns and others feel the same.  So if you haven't been there for awhile, check out Ravelry.

We also have medals on Ravelry for 2013 that people can put on their Ravelry pages.

If you have any ideas or suggestions about promoting Hats for Sailors, let us know.  You can comment here, on Ravelry or Facebook or send us an email at hatsforsailors@gmail.com

More November Prizes

Here is a preview to the prizes we will be highlighting on Ravelry and Facebook this week.  This is the last installment of November prizes.  All of this yarn was donated by Lynne and Shanti!

Three skeins of Lorna's Laces Lion & Lamb which is 50% silk and 50% wool and approximate 205 yards per skein.  The color is Tahoe.

Joslyn's Fiber Farm Shine which is 50% fine silk and 50% fine wool.  It is about 1900 yards of lace weight yarn.  The color is Real Red.

From Cherry Tree Hill one skein of Possum lace which is 40% merino/40% possum/20% silk.  It is 480 yards with a gauge of 7stitches per inch on size 4 needles.  The color is Northern Lights.  The other skein is Supersock Solids which is 100% merino fingering weight yarn with 370 yards per skein.  The color is Violet.

The top skein is Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock which is 80% Superwash Wool/20% Nylon with approximately 215 yards and the color is Purple Iris.  The other skein is Koigu Wool Premium Merino with 175 yards.

This is two skeins of Louisa Harding Kashmir Aran which is 55% merino/35% mircrofiber and 10% cashmere.  It is 83 yards per skein and gauge is 4 stitches per inch on size 8 needles.  The other one is a lace scarf kit with 300 meters of Pansy Yarn from Artisan Lace.

And the GRAND PRIZE is 12 skeins of Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Yarn which is 55% Merino wool/33% Microfibre/12% cashmere.  There is 90meters in each skein and the color is Evergreen.

WOW!  What great yarn and a huge thank you to Lynne and Shanti!!!

November Prizes

Over the next few weeks, we will be announcing some prizes to be given away in November.  You will have one chance to win a prize for every hat you have donated for a Sailor since our deadline in November, 2012.

One of our members Pat (plynn on Ravelry) has donated some lovely bags from Thirty-One Gifts.  These are great project and notion bags.

This would be a perfect project bag that will fit a larger project, like a sweater.  Your project could easily fit inside the bag with extra skeins of yarn.  The side pockets are perfect for all those notions we need!

This is a smaller bag than the one above, but is a great size for a hat or similar sized project.  You can easily fit a hat and and extra skein of yarn in this bag and then toss it inside your tote bag.

These are smaller pouches, perfect for storing all your notions!

Every one of these would be a great bag to have and help you organize your knitting or crochet!

Medals

If you haven't taken a look at our Ravelry discussion group lately, go take a look.  We now have medals that you can download from our Flickr page .  Here is an example.

Just a small way to recognize everyone's hard work!

More prizes to be announced next week!

Cables

These are the last hats in the current installment of  the "hats I would knit again" series.  I will revisit it when I get closer to the end of the 100 different patterns.  I currently have #38 on the needles and it is a cabled pattern.  I love the way the hat is turning out but it is aran weight yarn on smaller needles and it is hard on my hands so I am limiting the time I spend on it each day.

Cables are a very personal thing.  Individual preference is stronger when it comes to cables.  I love cables.  I love the way they look and feel and I enjoy knitting them and moving stitches around.  I looked through the patterns with cables I have already knit and decided I would knit them all again.  That post would be too long so I am focusing on a couple of standouts.

I am back to Jared Flood again and his pattern Koolhaas.  It is a fussy pattern and takes some concentration and lots of stitch manipulation.  It does have logic and it starts to make sense once you get in the rhythm.  I enjoyed knitting it and I love the way it looks, feels and fits.  I have made it twice already.  Both hats were made before I started my 100 hat project, so I imagine I will repeat it again in the coming months.  Here is a picture of one of my previous versions.

The other hat I really enjoyed is Brambles Beret by Amanda Muscha.  I first saw this when Orli (tinyplasticmeat on Ravelry) knitted it as a hat rather than a beret.  Somehow it had never occurred to me to make the minor adjustments to convert a beret to a hat.  It opened up all kinds of new possibilities and the first one was Brambles Beret.  I loved Orli's version and I loved the hat I made as well.  More simple and easier to follow than Koolhaas and more traditional in the look.  Here is my version.

Our November deadline is approaching.  The buildup will begin next week when we will start revealing some of the November prizes!

We Interrupt This Blog....

For my regular life..

August did not turn out the way I expected it to.  My weekly blog posts and my posts on Ravelry and Facebook took a back seat to another priority.

I had a couple of opportunities to spend time with my adult daughter and I didn't want to pass it up.  I have three grown children.  Both of my sons live in the area and I see them frequently.  My daughter has not lived near us since she headed off to college six years ago.  She is currently attending school in Europe but was in Chicago working for the summer.  I had the chance, at the last minute, to go to Chicago for two weeks in August and I took it!  I only had a few days back at home before she arrived.  She spent 4 days with all of us before heading back to school.

She is energetic and talented and full of ideas.  She knits and sews.  She wanted to make a quilt in four days.  Neither one of us are experienced quilters.  I took a class years ago and have made two quilts.  She has made one.  She chose a simple Amy Butler pattern and she thought we could do it.  How could I say no?  She did all the sewing and I did the cutting and pinning.  And amazingly we finished, with a few hours to spare!  The quilt is beautiful and now adorning her bed in Europe.  I love quilts.  I wish she had another four days at home so she could make one for me!  I took this picture late at night, in bad lighting just before it was finished.  My apologies for the poor quality.

Not a great excuse for ignoring my Hats for Sailors duties, but one I enjoyed tremendously!

Catching Up

Sharon from California is the winner of the Liberty Wool!  Congratulations!!!  She is so patient as I did not get her package in the mail until the quilt was finished!

This month the giveaway is even better.  We not only have the 2 skeins of Liberty Wool we are giving away on Ravelry but we also have a skein of Sunrise Fiber Company Freedom!  So you have an extra chance to win a great skein!

November Reminder

We have a few prizes for the annual giveaway in November and will be revealing those shortly.  Our big deadline is November 11th!!!  

Somewhere In The Middle

Sometimes I am in the mood for something interesting but not too challenging.  I want something that will keep my interest but won't be too fussy.  I want some changes to the pattern but I want to be able to memorize it so I won't have to keep looking at the pattern.  That's when I will knit one of these.

Waffle Hat by Gail Bable is a very popular hat in Hats for Sailors.  I see Jared Flood's Turn A Square most often but this is a close second.  It is a simple pattern to memorize, fun to knit and looks great.

Bus Hat by Kylie McDonnell-Wade is another popular one in Hats for Sailors.  It must be because it is also easy to memorize, fun to knit and also looks great.

Windschief by Stephen West is an easy pattern to knit with a slanted pattern that adds some interest to the knitting.

These three hats are ones that I will not only knit again, but I will knit them over and over again.

I Love This Pattern!

This pattern is Mixed Up May by Pat Salvatini, who is part of Hats for Sailors.

I have knitted 32 different patterns on my way to knit 100.  This will be the first pattern I knit when I am free to repeat patterns.  It was so much fun that I finished it in less than 24 hours!  It was very addictive and hard to put down.  I kept wanting to see the next color and pattern.  You can see from the picture that I used different colors for each pattern section, but I also used different colors for the sections in between.  It is a great hat to experiment with color and use up scraps of yarn.  I also think it would look great in one solid color.

Knitting all these hats, I have become either lazy or over confident.  I now only use a size 6 needle (that is probably laziness, why bother to get up and find other needles?).  I have a pretty good idea of how many stitches I need to get a hat of the right size and since it is going to a sailor, variation in size is not a bad thing (over confidence!).  So I never check my gauge (reckless?).  Maybe I should have.  For this hat, I used Cascade 220 superwash yarns for the entire hat.  It is a little thinner than some other yarns but I thought combined with my loose knitting, it would work out.  I realized when I was in the orange cabled section that the hat may not be big enough.  Thank goodness this pattern is easily modified!  I just added one more repeat to that section and the hat fits my head perfectly.  If I were to do it again, I might play around with the number of rows in different sections and see what happens (over confidence or reckless?).

Looking for a fun, addictive knit where you can experiment with both color and pattern but don't want it to be too complicated?  Give this one a try.

Hats I Would Knit Again - Part 2

WATCH CAPS

Following up on last week's post, here are some of my favorite Watch Cap patterns.

Ribbed Cap by Judy Gibson - I already mentioned this one in a previous post.  It has two variations.  One is the basic Watch Cap and the other has garter ribbing.  I have made both and really enjoyed them.  She has a great tip on changing colors on a ribbed cap.

Classic World War II Watch Cap by Helen Waittes - I really enjoyed this pattern.  It is a slight variation from the usual k2p2 and it makes it more fun to knit and a great hat to wear.

Rib a Roni by Jane Tanner - I really loved this hat.  There is enough variation in the pattern to keep it interesting but it is also very easy to remember.  What a great combination!  There is a lot of opportunity for stripes.

A Hat Fit for a Boyfriend by Stephanie Nicole - This is a ribbed beanie.  I like beanies because they are quick.  This is a simple pattern done well so the resulting hat looks great and fits great.

Next week...a pattern I love so much it will get its own post!

Patterns I Wish I Could Knit Again, Part I

In last weeks comments, someone asked which patterns I would like to knit again.  I thought I would wait until I reached 50, but as I looked through my hats page I realized that I already have several favorites.

If you look at my hats page, you will see every pattern in the order I finished them.  You can tell I knit according to my mood.  From the bottom up, you move winter to spring and summer.  See how my colors brighten as the seasons change?

I would knit every one of those hats again.  They are all great patterns.  Even in that stiff competition, I have a few favorites.  Over the next few weeks, I will highlight some of those patterns.  And because I am a mood knitter (or is it moody?) I will sort them by my mood.

When my life is hectic or I know I will need to knit in a dynamic environment, I go for something simple.  There are lots of simple hat patterns out there and there aren't big differences.  But here are a few of my favorites.  They are all simple to knit with a great looking and fitting hat.

Elizabeth Zimmerman has guidelines in Knitting Without Tears for knitting hats that I have used many times.  I like the guidelines because it allows a lot of flexibility.

Turn A Square by Jared Flood - This is such a simple, basic beanie.  I have recommended it several times before on this blog.  You can stripe it or not.  You can use variegated yarns or one simple color.  It is always a great hat.

Scraptastic Hat by Jane Tanner - I really like the way she uses up scraps to make great color changes.  I knit so many hats that I have lots of scraps and changing colors keeps me interested.  A great, colorful hat.

Regular Guy Beanie - This is an aran weight hat.  I like using a thicker yarn for a quicker knit!

New Simple Pleasures Hat by Purl Soho - Although the pattern lists lace weight, I used worsted weight.  This pattern was recommended to me by Linda in Texas.  I used her suggestion to cast on 88 stitches and use #6 needles.  I like the large ribbed brim combined with the stockinette simple hat.

Next week...my favorite Watch Caps.

Ribbed Caps

You may remember that I am knitting 100 hats from 100 different patterns.  Last week I was traveling and visiting with family.  I knew that if the pattern had any complications I would probably end up doing a lot of knitting and ripping.  I wanted a pattern that was simple enough to remember so I wouldn't have to check the pattern very often.

I had been looking at the pattern Ribbed Cap by Judy Gibson for awhile.  It is a basic Ribbed Hat or watch cap.  As I read the pattern more closely, I saw that there were two variations.  The first is a garter ridged beanie.

It is the first one I knitted and I really enjoyed it.  It is always easy to tell where you are and easy to remember.

The second one is the basic ribbed cap.  It is longer and with a brim and a simple k2p2 rib.

She also gives a great tip about changing colors on a ribbed cap.

These were #27 and #28 of 100.  I am really enjoying trying different patterns.  The only downside is when I find a pattern I really like, I have to set it aside and move on to a new pattern.  There are a number of patterns I have really enjoyed and will certainly come back to later.  This pattern, in both its variations, will definitely be one of those.

Happy Fourth of July!!!

I hope you have great plans for July 4th!  I am really looking forward to my annual picnic with extended family.  Our picnic has a long family tradition and so my thoughts have been swirling around family, traditions and our country's history.  

Our group started because of two amazing women who are mother and daughter and knitters.   Shanti writes the blog Adventures in Paradise.  Shanti is in the Navy and had the idea to provide a handmade hat to every sailor serving on the ship she would be commanding.  Lynne, her mom, helped make that idea a reality.  People heard about it and Lynne started receiving hats from all over the world.  I was one of those people and when I emailed Lynne for the mailing address, we discovered that we live a few miles apart.  I offered to help and so I joined many others to sort and pack boxes.  There had been such a great response, that we wanted to keep it going and Hats for Sailors was born.

Many of us are also tied to the US Navy or military by family members.  We hear your stories and I have my own.  We provide hats not only to show gratitude to the sailor who will receive our hat, but also in a personal way for those we know and love who have worn a uniform.  Our group's history extends beyond the two incredible women who started it.  It includes each of our stories and it goes back in time and extends out to others who serve. 

Knitters and crocheters also have a great history and amazing women and men who have come before us.  There is a tradition of knitting for our soldiers and sailors.  As I was searching for a new hat pattern, I came across this Navy Watch Cap.  It is an American Red Cross pattern from World War II.  That pattern and others from the American Red Cross are on this page.  I love the pictures that you can scroll through to the right.  On one of the posters, it says Knit Your Bit.  That's what we do, isn't it?  We knit our bit.

P.S.  If you are interested in reading more about World War II knitting, click on the link.

The Basics

I guess a recurring theme is how different the same or similar patterns can look if you change the yarn.  This week I have pulled out examples of a basic beanie pattern.

Some of these hats are exactly the same, knit in the same color and yarn by the same knitter.  All of the hats are very similar.  The colors are similar, mostly in blues and greens with just a few outside that range.  There are only minor differences in design.  Some have a brim, most do not.  One of them is in reverse stockinette.  If you have never knitted a hat before, this is a good place to start.  I will be traveling later this summer and this is the type of hat I will be knitting.  It will not require as much of my focus leaving me free to look at the scenery or talk to friends and relatives.  I have mentioned it before but it is probably worth repeating.  When it comes to a basic beanie, turn-a-square by Jared Flood is the most popular.

These are also basic beanie patterns, but the knitters added stripes.  They are dominated by blues but there is still a lot of variation, both in the colors of the stripes and the pattern of those stripes.  For knitters who want a basic beanie, but want to change it up a little bit, this is a great way to add some interest without adding complexity.

I hope you are having a great summer.  Hats are a great summer project, light and portable and with a simple pattern, easy enough to fit into your busy summer plans.

Knit and Purl

It surprises me the beautiful hats that can be made with simple stitches.  I looked through some of the hats we have received and pulled some out that used knits and purls.

It is a little hard to see the stitch definition in the darker hats in the photos, but they stand out in person.

The following pictures include a few hats with traveling stitches.  A little more complicated than knit and purl, but they are really beautiful.

It is amazing how much variety there is in hats in the above pictures.  Even hats that use the same pattern look different in various colors and stripes.  It's one reason I love to knit hats.  You can experiment with color and design without investing too much time in a project.  You can also memorize one pattern and knit it repeatedly, but change the color and it looks different every time.

And The Winner Is....

Marti from Colorado!  Congratulations to Marti!!!

A big thank you to everyone who contributed hats for the May deadline, including

AMBER                    
GINA
GWEN
HILA
JESS
JUDY
KAREN
KASSIE & BILL
KATHY
LE ANN
LINDA
MAGGIE
MARTI
MEAGHAN
MELANIE
NINA
ORLI
PEGGY
ROBYN
SANDRA
STEVE

We had a total of 184 hats!!!  Thank you to everyone!

Liberty Yarn

This week starts our Liberty Wool giveaways!  Tomorrow we will be giving away two skeins of one color of Liberty Wool to someone who sent hats in for our May deadline.  These are the two skeins that will be given away tomorrow.

I will be opening a thread on Ravelry where you can post pictures of your finished hats between June 11th and July 10th.  On July 11th, we will be giving away two skeins of a different color of Liberty Wool to one of those members who posted a picture in that thread.   This will continue every month with two skeins being given away on the 11th until the last giveaway on November 11th.


With this in mind I looked through the hats I have received and took a picture of hats in similar colors made with Liberty or other variegated yarns.  They are so great because whether you are using a simple or more difficult pattern, they look beautiful!  More similar pictures to come in future posts.

As always, you can look on our pages on Ravelry and see some beautiful hats by better photographers.  It was one of these postings that inspired many of us to try Liberty wool and it has quickly become a Hats for Sailors favorite.

Our goal is always to have as many hats as possible for our sailors and publicity certainly helps!  I thought I would highlight three blogs by people who donate to Hats for Sailors.  Not only do they knit hats for our cause, but they have linked to us on their blogs and have generated significant traffic!  Thank you to all of them and to all of you!  

They are:
52 Quilts
She Makes Hats
Z Knits and Sews

I happened to have stumbled across these, but if you knits Hats for Sailors and have a blog, add yours to our comments section.

November Deadline Monthly Prizes

Liberty Wool is a popular choice among Hats for Sailors knitters and crocheters.  They make a simple pattern beautiful!  Check out the group in Ravelry for some lovely examples.

I have a box full of Liberty Wool kindly donated by a friend who doesn't knit but loves what we do and wanted to help.  So we are going to give away the Liberty Wool as prizes between now and the November deadline but we are going to do it a little bit differently than we have before and we are very excited!

We will give away one prize each month on the 11th with the final prize being November 11, 2013.  The prize will be two skeins of one color.  We will open a new thread on Ravelry for each month.  Every person who posts a picture of a completed hat or hats in that thread will have one chance per hat to win the Liberty Wool.  If you are technically challenged (like many of us are) post in the thread anyway and we will either help you figure it out or come up with some other way to include you without having to post a picture.

Since we don't want to forget all the people who sent hats in for our May deadline, the first prize will be given to someone who sent a hat in for that deadline.  We will announce the winner on June 11th.  All the hats that have been mailed should have arrived by that time.  If you have mailed in hats and you have not received an email from me by June 8th, then send me a message and we will straighten it out.

So get your needles, hooks and cameras ready.

This is only the beginning of our exciting November deadline news!!!  We are currently finalizing some prizes for November.  Every person who donates a hat for a 2013 deadline will have a chance to win.

May Hats

The May deadline just passed.  A lot of hats are in the mail and even more will be arriving in the next week or two.  So many people have been knitting so many beautiful Hats for Sailors that I thought I would show some of them on these pages over the next few weeks.

I'll start with a box from Linda in Texas.  She has been knitting Hats for Sailors for a long time and we have communicated back and forth.  She knows that I am working on knitting 100 hats from 100 different patterns. (I did finish #20 last week).  So she included some aid in her package.

I found her lovely hats, a letter and several patterns that she enjoys that I haven't tried yet.  They were perfectly timed as I have been looking ahead and wondering how I am going to get to 100.  These brought me closer!

Not only had she included the patterns, but she had provided small numbers attached to her hats so I could match the pattern to the hat.  I have a hard time seeing a picture of a pattern on a piece of paper and imagining it in real life hat form.  Seeing her hats (and all of yours) really helps me see how beautiful the hats can be.

A second box arrived from Linda the next day!

All of you generously share your experiences and ideas with us.  Your choices of patterns and yarns and colors inspire me and others to try new things.  Thank you to every single person who has sent in a hat.  The sailor who received or will receive your hat will appreciate it, but so do the rest of us who appreciate your talent.

Keep watching for more beautiful hats by the knitters/crocheters of Hats for Sailors.

We also have some exciting plans for the next deadline on November 11, 2013.

Cables

I love cables!  I love the way they look and I love being able to move stitches.  I love that the pattern changes every row but repeats every several rows.  It keeps me interested but is familiar at the same time.  Cabled hats are also stretchy and fit a variety of head sizes.  It makes a great option if you do not know the size of the head of the future wearer.

After writing this post, I realized that I need to improve my photography skills and I should put the hats on someone's head!  All of my pictures are poor representations of the beautiful hats, so check out the links on Ravelry to see better photographs of these lovely patterns.

I'm back to Jared Floor (remember the popular Turn A Square?).  Koolhaas is a beautiful pattern that uses cabling to make a very interesting pattern.

Merrick by Amand Schwabe is another beautiful pattern.  I enjoyed moving the cables around the hat.  It needs to be on a head to see how beautifully the cables weave around each other.

Dean Street Hat by Nina Machlin Dayton has a lot of cables but is repetitive enough to make it an easier cable knit.


I have finished 18 of my 100 hat goal with #19 on the needles.  Our next deadline is in a week It would be nice to have 20 finished by then.  I'll let you know next week.

WATCH CAPS

Watch Caps are very popular.  I most commonly see a simple watch cap that is basically 2x2 ribbing throughout.  Here are three Watch Cap patterns that I have knitted.

This is a classic pattern that has many different names on Ravelry.

This was a nice pattern with some variation to keep it interesting.  It is Classic World War II Watch Cap.

And finally, A Hat Fit For A Boyfriend is another frequently knit hat.  It is a classic that looks great and fits well.

My goal is 100 hats from 100 different patterns and I have completed 17.  I am ready to cast on the next one and am looking for a pattern.  I'm off to the Hats for Sailors Finished Projects page on Ravelry to see what others have been knitting.

LET'S TALK ABOUT HATS

We have a deadline approaching at the end of the month and the hats are starting to arrive.  And although the main motivation for participating in Hats for Sailors is being able to provide hand knit and crocheted hats to sailors, there are also great side benefits for me because they arrive in my mailbox.  I don't have to knit all of the hats to see beautiful patterns.  I also don't have to knit dozens of versions of the same pattern to see how different yarns can produce equally beautiful but different hats.

I have a personal goal of knitting 100 hats from 100 different patterns over the next two years so I have been paying more attention to the patterns that people are using.  I thought I would start sharing some of my observations in case you are also looking for ideas.  These are three patterns that I commonly see.

Turn-A-Square by Jared Flood is a probably the pattern I have seen the most.  It is simple, easy to memorize and looks great.  Look through the finished projects on Ravelry and you will see how much variety there is.  With over 13000 Ravelry projects there are a lot to look at!

Bus Hat by Kylie McDonnell-Wade has great texture.  It is interesting to knit but also easy to memorize.  It stretches and will fit a variety of sizes.

Waffle Hat by Gail Bable is similar to the Bus Hat.  It has great texture, easy to memorize and interesting to knit.  It also expands and contracts well to fit different size heads.

I'll be highlighting more patterns in the future, based on what I see and what I have tried.  Do you have a favorite pattern?

Sandra