Tag: hat knitting

Christmas Gift Knitting; Hats For the Guys

Get an early start on hat knitting for Christmas. This page lists a few hat patterns, for free and to purchase, that work well for guys. Also, I’ve listed some machine washable yarn to get you started.

Believe it or not I have wanted to post this for a couple of years now… haha…! By the time I realize I need to share a post about Christmas knitting, it’s too late to accomplish these patterns.

The perfect gift for any guy who lives in a cold climate is a hat. They will wear something warm all winter, and probably loose a few along the way.

I’m a sucker for a fold up brim on my hats. It adds warmth around the ears, but some people prefer a simple flat ribbing. Often a pattern can be knit either way.

Awesome Hat Patterns for Men and Boys

When it comes to hats, most styles are perfectly suitable for men or women, but here is a list of hat patterns created to please a man.

  • Taconite, by Virginia Sattler-Reimer – Worsted weight yarn – three styles
  • Dustland, by Stephen West – DK
  • Botanic, by Stephen West – Worsted
  • Men’s Basic Hat – FREE pattern, aran yarn- folded brim
  • Bankhead – FREE pattern, worsted
  • Dual Loop Beanie – worsted, ribbed beanie – folded brim (See the one I knit at the bottom of this page.)
Cats wearing wool hats and scarves.
Image by Tyli Jura from Pixabay

Yarn

Most likely the men and boys in our lives would like hats that are soft and comfortable. But they also usually prefer darker colors and easy care. They will toss a dirty hat into the laundry pile and pop it into the dryer. So that is the trouble. Hand-knitting gifts for someone who will not treat is as a hand-knit.

I prefer to knit with nice organic wool, which is warm, but it always requires hand-washing. Superwash merino wool is pretty easy to find, but often it should not go into the dryer. Man-made acrylic yarn is something I never use, but might be the most perfect choice for guys.

dogs wearing winter hats
Image by Tyli Jura from Pixabay

Pairing up Hat Patterns With Easy Care Yarn

I have raised three boys so I know a bit about what they like. For all their lives (and they are all over 21 now) they wore black clothing, or colors as close to black as possible. I have one daughter as well who did bring color into my life! The boys have not changed and if I want to knit something for them, it had better be in drab, dark,”boy colors”.

Sock yarn is easy care, but a heavier weight yarn makes knitting quicker. Here are a few ideas to get you started. Remember that washable wool / super wash will tend to stretch when washed.

Image by Tyli Jura from Pixabay

It’s honestly pretty easy to find washing washable yarn, but most yarns recommend to “lay flat to dry”. Not many hand knits can go into the dryer. How often do hats need washing anyway?

dual loop beanie
Dual Loop Beanie
Dual Loop beanie in gray wool

Do you have any suggestions? What are you knitting this season for gift giving?

cat and yarn image

Some hats I’ve knit

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Getting There on the Doublemassa Knitting Project

An update on my latest hat knitting project. This one is a very long hat called the Doublemassa.

The dark blue yarn skein is just about finished up. This morning was quite chilly for a March morning in Florida. I was bundled up in my newest Warm Up sweater, hat and mitts while I checked on the garden and filled the bird feeders. I decided to show my progress on the Doublemassa hat.

Fair Isle tube hat knitting in navy blue and off-white.

As you can see this is a very long hat! It looks huge, and I am hoping it will fit properly.

The colorwork designs are pretty cool, and I just finished up the birds rows. When looking at this hat finished, on Ravelry, the brim will fold up to either the birds or the hearts (which I have not even begun yet)!

Here is how the hat will fold: From the top of those snowflakes down, everything is tucked up inside. Then the snowflake brim part will be folded out and up. The snowflakes will cover most of those two colorwork sections above the snowflakes. This creates 4 layers of fabric at the brim. I’m not good at visualizing this and can’t wait to actually do it.

Even though this hat is already quite long, I have many rows of colorwork left to knit. It’s been a very fun pattern, as I love doing Fair Isle. The Rauma yarn is quite awesome as well.

As I knit more, I will be attaching a new skein of blue, and will probably need more of the natural color eventually.

If you have knit the Musselburgh hat, the Doublemassa hat style is very similar. It is more involved because of all the colorwork, but begins at one end and makes a tube to the other end. The Musselburgh can be worn inside out, as if it were two hats, but this one is worn on one side only. It will have a tassel too!

Let’s Keep Knitting!

Frogging the Moose Hat

Frogging is a knitting term meaning “ripping out”. I have tried to knit this Moose hat twice with different colors of yarn (link to pattern below).

First I knit a yellow beginning row then brown for the brim. I tore that out. The pattern sample hat is white with two contrast colors, but I didn’t want a white hat. I was also trying to use up stash yarn.

I thought this would be a quickly done FO using up DS sharing HOTN within a day or two. Instead I had a TOAD! (Don’t understand Knitcabulary? Read this fun post at Knitfarious.)

This time I used Yarn Cafe Creations merino wool (blue, “The Ring”) with brown Spincycle for the moose motif. For the third color I used an off-white light fingering wool and combined it with mohair (think snow).

Moose Hat knitting
Purl ridge added for texture

I’ve learned how to carry floats with the left and right hand yarns while knitting projects like this. I’m no expert, and this was good practice. No knitting is a complete waste!

Trial and Error and My Mistakes

I did a little purl ridge to give some texture with the white (not a great idea!) and I began the moose design first instead of the trees. Many Ravelry comments from previous knitters mentioned that they should have done the moose first and that the hat gets too long with all the motif sections.

Because I wanted the moose, but no white, I envisioned the moose walking in snow with snowflakes falling above. The pattern actually has a row of trees, then moose, and more trees at the top. Each section is divided by two rows of a third contrast color. If the hat is knit according to the pattern, it will be quite tall.

Moose hat beginning knitting hat
Adding some mohair in the white rows

I Love to Knit Hats… But

The trouble with knitting hats is that you can’t actually try them on until they are nearly finished. The moose stranded knitting area seemed tight, which I guess usually happens with colorwork. From the brim to the main hat area the needle size goes up by 2, and I used a size larger than that because I know I am a tight knitter.

Moose hat pattern
Nearly done with the moose motif

Yesterday I got past the moose rows and wanted to do snowflakes instead of trees along the top. The off-white with mohair blended in with the blue variegated yarn and could barely be seen.

Now the hat was tall enough that finally I could try it on …. and I hated it! It was loose at the brim (I made the brim half the recommended length) and tight around the moose motif section. This is not the type of yarn I want for a hat either! (Note to self: don’t use sock / fingering yarn for a winter hat – unless it’s a man’s cap.)

I’ve decided to frog it. The pattern is not something I will try again, but I have the moose motif to save for another time – maybe a scarf / cowl / or mittens.

Link to the Moose Hat Pattern

Most of the problems I had with this hat were brought on myself and I don’t blame the designer. If you want to buy this pattern, or read comments from other knitters, find it at Ravelry: Beware of the Moose.

Beware of the moose hat pattern knitting project

I prefer my winter hats to be chunky, or at least knit in worsted weight, like my Quarry Hat, Simple Rasta Hat, or Star-topped Hat.

My next stranded knitting project will be a pair of mittens when I join the Woolly Thistle KAL.

Knitting My Star-topped Hat

I’ve been trying to knit a simple hat for my son, but both times I began recent hats I ran out of yarn for the cast-on! I’m doing the German Twisted cast-on (I have linked to the YouTube video below) and it tends to use more yarn than I measure out for the Long tail cast-on. I keep misjudging amounts… Grrr…! So the hats have ended up being knit for me because my son has a big head!

Star on top hat
Mad Tosh “Vintage” and Anzula “For Better or Worsted”

How to Knit This Hat

I made this up myself and here is how I did it.

Cast on 102 stitches (this will make a loose hat) using the German Twisted cast on – SEE VIDEO BELOW, or a stretchy cast on. I used a size 10, 16-inch circular needle (and DPN’s) and ended up with a circumference of about 18.5 inches unstretched. My head measures around 22.5 inches, and it fits me well, but it is not tight at all. (It also fits my son fine… oh well, but he doesn’t like the colors.)

Knit one, purl one ribbing … for as long as you want. I made mine extra long because I was originally going to complete the hat in that stitch. I switched to knitting only (stockinette) for a couple rows and then began the “star” colorwork. I had to learn how to carry the yarn and create long floats for this. View my favorite YouTube video for this here.

102 stitches divides into 6 sections with 17 stitches in each. At the beginning of the round I knit 16 in gray (Mad Tosh Vintage in Antique Moonstone, I think), 1 in brown – around to BOR. On the next row I knit to one before the brown and added brown on each side – knit 15 gray, knit 3 brown.

I continued on this way until the whole top was brown (Anzula “rootbeer” yarn in “For Better or Worsted” – knitting a FREE cowl with this here). Then I began my decreases.

Decreases for top: Row 1: K4, k2tog, PM (place marker) around. Row 2 & even rows: knit around. Row 3 and odd rows: Knit to 2 stitches before marker and K2tog, around. Do this until only a few stitches remain and gather them up with the end of the yarn on a needle, and pull. Weave in ends, remembering that the brim will flip up!

Star on top hat knit in worsted yarn
Drying on a cantaloupe

Andrea Mowry and The German Twisted Cast-on

I watched many videos trying to understand the German Twisted cast-on, (which is also called the Old Norwegian Cast-on). The one I have linked to below is by far the best. She goes slow, but not too slow. It is very easy to understand, and use, once you practice.

By the way, Andrea Mowry is an awesome, and successful, knitwear designer. The link goes to Ravelry where her patterns are for sale. Or check out her website at Drea Renee Knits. I have not knit any of her patterns, only because I’m not yet sure I have the skills needed for most of them. Her Throwback cardigan is one of my favorites, but my next pattern may be the comfy looking Oxbow Cardigan.

Somewhat Related: Taking a Walk in Florida’s Winter

The photo below has nothing to do with this post, but I took it around the time I was knitting the hat and it is mixed in with the knitting photos on my phone. I thought I would share what I saw on a recent walk around my Florida neighborhood in the evening.

Getting exercise is necessary, and I tend to feel unwell when I just sit around and knit, or work online. It’s easy to become preoccupied with knitting, but I do get outdoors this time of year to stretch my muscles. It is a wonderful treat after suffering through the long HOT Florida summer.

Our climate in Florida is nearly opposite to the north, in my mind, because summer keeps me indoors. Except that the summers are worse because you truly cannot do anything much outside. At least in the northern winters there are good days. This is not true of Florida summers. It NEVER cools off.

Evening walk in Florida neighborhood
Taking a walk

December is one of the best months, weather-wise, in Florida. Nights are cool (40’s to 60’s), and days are warm (60’s and 70’s). There are few storms, no hurricanes, and very little rain. Evenings are especially nice and if you have a view of the west, the sunsets are gorgeous. I am not looking directly toward the West in my photo. The bright sunset colors are off to my right – through the trees – but that color spreads across the sky because it’s so flat here.

Anyway, this was a quick glimpse into a Florida winter evening. Happy knitting!