I’m still working on hats. Loving hats right now. I had a thought this morning on the bus – I knit big things often – cardigans, shawls, other garments. I think the small, fast items are a relief right now. Not to mention the fun of going into my stash and pulling out single skeins – perhaps special skeins I’ve been saving (for what?) and leftovers I thought were useless.

Here is a hat I made last week for my nephew Willem. He’s been my main hat recipient in his eight years on earth. He’s had a few but I’ve stuck to pretty plain beanies for him. This time, I branched out a bit and whipped this one  up pretty quickly.

It’s called Beamish. There’s a great collection by UK hat designer, Woolly Wormhead. It’s called Bambeanies. It’s the same collection (of 20 hats) where I found Alice’s Queenie hat, which you may recall. Fabulous collection. So many hats I’m queuing up for the small people in my life.

I made it in the same colours as the one in the book. Two tone blue was too hard to pass up. The yarn is Biggan DK – my first time using it, purchased at Tangled Yarns in Brisbane. I quite liked it. Nice feel to it – not quite as soft as I’d anticipated, but great hat yarn.

The pattern only went up to a size that would fit perhaps a five year old, so it was easy to modify, just adding twelve stitches to the cast on.

Adding the i-cord worms to the top was fun and fast. An hour or so and it was done.

I sent the hat to Willem last week and his mum took these photos. He told me on the phone he really likes the hat. I think his face says it all.

It was finished last week, since then I’ve made a hat for Alice and am onto another light, Spring beret for me. It’s lots of fun.

As a side note, if you’ve ever wanted to learn to make your own pasta, I learned recently when my sister taught me. I’m a complete convert and have written about it here. Lots of photos and details on how it’s so much easier than I ever thought it would be.

Bells