My Hat Trick (a Fair Isle Knitting Binge)

I finally did it. I conquered my fear of fair isle knitting and now I’m hooked.

This seems to happen a lot with yarn work. When I mastered granny squares last year, I spent months crocheting the heck out of them. Granny square coasters. Granny square pillows. Granny square afghans.

So now I’ve moved on to the fair isle knitting and I see a lot of that in my future as well. So fun! And every time you’re close to getting bored, it’s time to switch colors and change things up. And I just love the patterns.

This is the Cheery Scrap Cap  — a fun, free pattern on ravelry. She’s got tons of ways to customize the pattern, but I just went with whatever stash yarn I had that was nice and bright and mostly the same size. The earflaps are key — my kids hate freezing ears! My ravelry notes are here if you want to check ’em out.

This one is a belated Christmas present. I tend to overthink knitting presents for people — am I making it for someone who will actually appreciate something handmade? Is it actually something they need or am I just knitting for the sake of knitting? Will they like it? Will they use it? I think hats are pretty practical — people rarely outgrow them and no one ever seems to have enough hats for cold days. Even in warmer areas, people need hats for trips and things. This one is for a guy so it’s a classic navy and white and since the pattern is a little more elaborate, there aren’t as many color changes. I think it would be super-cute in a pink and lime or yellow for a girl as well. This is the Norwegian Fairisle Snowflake hat — a free fair isle knitting pattern online.

And also, since I’m on a hat kick and all, a bear hat. I know. It’s not in keeping with the fair isle knitting theme I’ve got going on. But I happen to know lots of people going around having babies, and these babies need bear hats. It’s amazing, really, how one little pair of bear ears can make a basic brown hat so stinking cute!!

My notes for this one are here — I used a basic knit hat pattern, combined with a separate pattern just for the ears and then sewed them on.

I do love knitting hats — they’re just the right size for experimenting. Small, so you can try new patterns, finish them up pretty quickly, and move on to another.

Happy knitting!

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