A Hat So Nice, I Knit It Thrice

When you find a good pattern, you stick with it. I love this one from Caron x Pantone by way of Knifty Knittings and decided to make the most of my yarn and experiment with different color arrangements.

In the spirit of using up yarn and chipping away at (or at least not adding to) my giant stash, I thought making three hats from the same yarn would help, but now I just have small amounts of all five colors left. Does anyone’s chihuahua need a winter hat?

These hats are knit in the round and, despite the intricate fair isle pattern, it’s a really quick and easy project. It only took a night to knit one!

Joann Fabrics has these cute faux-fur pompons which work great for the tops. I love this gray hat topper—and it was only a couple bucks! It helps even out the price of the wool yarn from a fancy yarn shop. I am very weak once I enter one of these places…especially when I have in-depth conversations with the owner and spend three hours touching her yarns.

And, if at this point in the blog you’re asking yourself just what does a hat look like on a human head?! Ask no more. I apologize for this, and also you would not believe how many times I attempted retaking it. Cheers to winter!

My First Commission!

It fits!

I just had to share my very first commissioned knitting project! If that hat looks familiar, it’s because it’s the same as the one I recently knit for myself in tan and pink. My friend saw it and requested one in gray (with specific instructions to include “NO PINK”). I used thick, chunky yarns like I did for the first one but in light and dark gray.

Gray on gray on gray.

One thing I’ve always been unsure about, if I ever did sell any of my stuff, was how much to charge. I wanted to make it affordable and give a deal to people I know, but, at the same time, make it worth it for myself, considering all the time these projects take. I found this blog post which gives an actual formula for calculating what to charge for a project that I found helpful. Basically…

• Cost of supplies + $10 per hour = Price A
• Cost of supplies x 3 = Price B

Then calculate the average of A & B, and compare it to the market price of the item. The price I got with this formula was pretty close to what I had seen on etsy for similar items.

Hope you’re enjoying your hat, Brie!

Slouchy Knit Hat with Pink Accents (and a Pom-Pom!)

Photo cred: my sister Ellen. Awkward facial expression cred: me.

Where do I submit my hat for the fastest-project-ever-completed award? As opposed to the pillow that never seemed to end, I did this one from start to finish in under a week. I think it only took about three total nights of sitting down to knit for an hour or two to finish it—a refreshing change!

Tan and bright pink—who knew?!

This was a fun, super-easy pattern (that I found on Ravelry) to knit that started on circular needles and then switched to double-pointed needles. I must brag that the pom-pom was not part of the pattern—that was all me, baby! As usual, I didn’t check the gauge and winged it with the yarns that I used (both of which I already had lying around) but it worked out. The thick tan yarn (Patons Classic Wool Roving in Natural) and the bright pink yarn (a cotton yarn I had from a dishcloth I made awhile back when that seemed like a fun idea) turned out looking pretty good together. The whole hat required less than one skein of the main tan color and hardly any of the accent color (perfect for using up leftovers). I definitely want to make more of this hat and I especially like the pop of bright color in the purled rows.

That pom-pom tho…

My stock of yarn is making me question one thing, though. Am I so boring that my favorite color might actually be tan or gray? I don’t think so but, man, for everything I knit, I’m drawn to using shades of grays, browns, and neutrals. Oh well. Maybe I’ll make a neon green turban next.

The perfect chunky hat for a snowy day.