I wanted to show off the two hats I just finished. Now I'm working on one that's a spiral design. Each color is six rows wide but I was watching TV while knitting last night and goofed and made one color 8 rows wide. I didn't noticed until I'd knitted about 20 more rows. I ripped it out back to the error, then reknitted about 10 rows and realized I still had one row too many. Rather than rip it out again, I put the project to bed and didn't feel like working on it today either. Maybe tomorrow. But here are the photos. The blue one is already spoken for. I'll put the orange one in my Etsy shop if anyone is interested.

Last night I started right in with another hat in bright orange and white. Once again I'm chastizing myself knowing that people keep telling me bright colors won't sell and multicolored hats won't sell and I should stick to solid earthtones. I've tried, honest, but solid earthtones bore me to tears. I must have clown DNA. Who wants to wears a depressing color on a foggy winter day? Not I!

No time to design your own pattern? Surely you will find a hat you like on this list: HATS TO KNIT

If you need one for you or a loved one, email me at Pigglewiggins (at) gmail.com. and let me know your favorite color. Also, do you prefer solids or stripes or anything goes. Make sure you tell me if it's for a child, teen, or adult so I get the size right. And I'll need a complete address to send it to. And if any of you are in the Anaheim area I also accept donations of yarn and knitting and crocheting supplies, as long as they are from a smoke free environment. That way I can keep the caps coming, and you can get your closet cleaned out of all the yarn Aunt Martha left you. And if you could never figure out that new fangled knitting loom, I'll be happy to have those too. That way I can put the local teens to work making hats as well.

I was walking past my bookcase this morning when my eye fell upon a vintage crochet book that I bought when I was in high school (1975). I thought it would be fun to make the top with squares that's on the cover. Of course I can't get into that size so I'll just have to use it for inspiration. But I took a photo of the book just in case it might bring back memories to you as well. Since I want to use different thicknesses of yarn I had to alter the directions or use two strands of the thinner yarns. But the main idea is to make all the squares the same size so I can put a border around them (like stained glass) and fashion them into a top.

Right now I'm getting ready to make some slouch hats. Once I visualized in my mind that the shape is the same as a snood, only with a solid fabric instead of a netted one, I realized how easy it will be to make some. It's pretty much the same thing as a bag cap we wore at the Renaissance Faires. Some of the slouch cap patterns I googled up yesterday aren't really baggy at all and look just like beanies. I think they missed the point. One pattern I read said that these 'slouch hats' would only be in style a few months so make them super big out of wool, so when the trend passes you can shrink them down and felt them to be a normal hat. Evidentally she doesn't know her hat history because this classic style has been around for centuries. When Pete Seeger wore one to the Obama Inaguration, I seriously doubt he was trying to be trendy. Ah well, that's fashionistas for you.