Firewood Cap

I might have mentioned this before now and then 😅, but I love knitting small projects, like this hat. 

It’s the Firewood Cap, a design by Lindsey Fowler, and features in her fantastically beautiful book “Salt & Timber, knits from the Northern Coast”.

I used Soft Donegal, from the Irish company Donegal yarns.

Love the design, love the wool, love my new hat!

Fool's gold hat

It has been a while since I actually finished a knitting project and I enjoyed it immensely.

This free pattern is called "Brick Sidewalk Beanie" which you can find here. It's an easy one, but stays interesting because of the repeating pattern. I used Hedgehog Fibers Merino DK in the absolutely fabulous colourway "Fool's gold". 

I loved knitting this hat, both because of the lovely yarn and the pattern being right up my street. Very happy with my new favourite hat!

The wonderful yarn:

The Purl Soho Reversible Hat

I have been working on this hat for quite some time. It was my travel knit and since we are not travelling at the moment, there was little progress for some time. But at last, it got finished, just in time for some cold spells this spring. It's a Purl Soho pattern which you can find here. It's a double-layered hat : you start knitting the first hat from the top down with colour 1, then continue right on with the second hat in colour 2, bottom up. You tuck one inside the other and connect them with a little tassel. It's reversible, so two hats in one!

The yarn I used is Ashford Tekapo 3ply (brown and off-white). I bought it at Wolboerderij Blij Bezuiden, a small sheep breeding farm in the South of the Netherlands. Besides their herd of merino sheep they have a wonderful, friendly shop and lots of knowledge and energy. Here I learned how to spin and I’m so happy with this skill, it’s a very relaxing thing to do!

 

My Pal's Hat

I love knitting hats and my BF loves wearing them : great combination!
This one is the Vanilla Hat by Deborah Lynch. It's knitted with the provisional cast-on technique which gives a lovely folded brim.
I used Peak District Yarns DK, in the colourway "Charcoal Kate 1". I love how the subtle change of colour in the yarn  turned out in the knitted fabric.
Peak District Yarns is a studio and workshop in Tideswell in the Peak District, UK. The unbelievably beautiful landscape there is the inspiration for their unique hand-dyed yarns.
Last year we went on a trip to this amazing corner of the world and we fell in love with the raw expanse of the Peaks. And of course the Peak District Yarns shop had to be on my to-do list! I was not disappointed and this skein is only one of the many I bought… Perhaps I should learn to control myself a bit better in these gorgeous yarn shops! 😁

                                                                  The lovely yarn:

work in progress and knitting on the train:

Katahdin hat

My favourite hat so far! Love the colours, love the slouchyness, love the softness of the knitted fabric.
And it was super fun to make, once the ribbing was done (I am not a big fan of ribbing…).
It's a free pattern on Ravelry, and you can find it here.
The yarn is The Fiber co Acadia, a wool, silk alpaca blend. It is rustic and so soft and lovely, I will definitely use it again !!

Very basic Hubbie Hat

I found, somewhere deep down my stash, a skein of bulky yarn : Tiziana by Lang Yarns (50% wool and 50% acrylic). I bought it once because of its beautiful colours. Okay, I'm not really into this kind of yarn anymore, but I wanted to make use of it anyway. My husband is always in need of a hat and was super glad that I could make him another one for his collection. I decided to try to design my own, admittedly very simple knitting pattern for it. And well, it worked : another warm nice hat ! Rather proud.

And here is the pattern : 

(you can have it for free, but if you would like to leave a comment, or even better, if you would like to follow my blog by subscribing, that would be lovely !!)

Very basic Hubbie Hat

Materials : 5 mm 60 cm long circular needle

                 5 mm Double pointes needles

                 1 100 gram skein of bulky yarn (120m/100gram)

Pattern :

Cast on 67 sts, on the circular needle

Join the work in the round, making sure not to twist your stitches.

Place marker for end of round

Work in garter stitch until piece from beg measures 16 cm.

Next row: [k9sts, k2tog] rep to last st, k1. (61 sts now on needle)

Knit 1 row

Next row : [k8sts, k2tog] rep to last st, k1. (55 sts now on needle)

Knit 1 row

Next row : [k7sts, k2tog] rep to last st, k1. (49 sts now on needle)

Knit 1 row

Next row : [k6sts, k2tog] rep to last st, k1. (43 sts now on needle)

Knit 2 rows

Change to double pointed needles.

Next row : [k5sts, k2tog] rep to last st, k1. (37 sts now on needle)

Knit 2 rows

Next row : [k4sts, k2tog] rep to last st, k1. (31 sts now on needle)

Next row : [k3sts, k2tog] rep to last st, k1. (25 sts now on needle)

Next row : [k2sts, k2tog] rep to last st, k1. (19 sts now on needle)

Next row : k1, [k2tog, k1] rep to end (13 sts now on needle)

Next row : [k2tog] rep to last st, k1 (7 sts now on needle)

Cut the yarn, leaving a long strand.

Use a yarn needle to thread the strand through the remaining 7 stitches.

Draw up tight, secure end firmly. Weave in ends.

Felicity hat

This is another free pattern on Ravelry : the Felicity hat, by Wanett Clyde.
My felicity hat turned out smaller and therefore not as slouchy as I would have liked.
The yarn is Suri merino (Blue Sky Fiber), a soft and warm alpaca-merino blend. Very nice to knit up. It's from Julija's shop in Antwerp. The shop stocks georgeous yarns (Brooklyn Tweed, Manos del Uruguay, Madelinetosh, Quince and co, West Yorkshire spinners,...). However, I would love this shop even more if the atmosphere was a bit more inviting, a bit friendlier..

Itty bitty bear cubs

What an adorable pattern! You can find it (it's free!) here on ravelry. I very much enjoyed  knitting these baby hats for 2 friends' new babies. The yarn is Duetto Stampe, a wool-cotton blend, which I liked working with.

And here is one of the Little Heroes with his new hat! 💜 

Tadaa! The Baa-ble hat

Now all of you should hear triumphant trumpets! I have been meaning to knit this hat for a while, but was rather scared of the colour-work.
The Baa-ble hat was the official pattern for Shetland Woolweek 2015, held every year in Shetland to celebrate Shetland wool and its associated crafts. When I downloaded it, the pattern was still free. Now you can purchase it, here on Ravelry.
The yarn I used is Rico Design Essentials soft Merino aran superwash. I adore the colours!! But I would recommend a more rustic yarn for this hat. The yarn I used makes the hat a bit too stretchy and soft. That being said, I am sooo happy with it. The sheep are so adorable and the hat is very warm. And let's not forget the huge pompom. I wore it in the house for two days, that's how proud I was.
This is an ideal introduction to colour-work or Fair Isle knitting. As a bonus, I learned to knit with two colours in different hands, which makes colourwork much more fun. And another bonus is that I can now knit continental, which is so much easier on the right shoulder that gives me quite a bit of trouble.
So, in my opinion, triumphant trumpets in order here!

let's get started, on double pointed needles:

the colourwork, on circular needle:

me, very happy, with my own Baable-hat!

A hat for an English winter

My dear son asked for a yellow hat. Far away from home, or finding a new one, his ears were cold. So I made him this 'Men's basic hat', a pattern from Yarnspirations. A link to this pattern can be found here on Ravelry. The yarn is Borgo de Pazzi Amore 115 recycled Merino Wool. This is a truly great yarn I bought at Julija's shop in Antwerp.
Bpost and Royal Mail made sure the hat arrived just in time for him to be able to defy a very cold few weeks, which made me very happy!