Crazy: think winter

The world is roasting. I’m thinking about hats. Winter hats. Warm ones. Worn in snowy cold times. I’ve found some snow-filled photos of previously unblogged hats. Maybe it can be a breath of cool air. Probably a crazy idea.

Crazy is what Michigan’s Stonehedge Fiber Mill calls this version of its sport weight merino. Those colors have enchanted many a knitter. And, methinks, it’s exactly those colors that can keep the yarn languishing in stash while we look for what to do with it. I had plans for these 3 skeins. What plans? I don’t recall. But I remember getting help at a yarn shop with a great selection of colorways because I wanted two skeins that were somewhat alike and one skein that was different but would work well with the other two. Time passed. And passed.

Last winter I decided it was time to knit up some of the beautiful yarn in my stash. Crazy qualified as beautiful. I retreated to one of my favorite places in the knitting universe: hat patterns.

This is Katushika’s Wurm, a great Rav freebie. I had a lot of blue in my skeins. I decided to manipulate the colors a bit so that a band of red and some brown would anchor the middle of the hat.

The crown of the hat just happened as the colors in the skein progressed. I’ve knit 7 of these now and only have this one left in my gift stash. They’re a popular gift pick. You can adjust the extravagant slouch, of course. But I like them super slouchy. Rav has more than 17,000 project pages of Wurms. You might want to add one of your own.

Next up is Chrissy Graham’s River District Hat. In her pattern page version, the hat is beautifully sedate. In my version it looks like it could use some sedation. But I really like it like this!

This time I just let the colors progress as they lined up in the skein. That’s often when Crazy is at its best.

Here’s another River District Hat and another example of how Crazy colors progress in a skein.

That short length of black and white worked out perfectly to frame the crown decreases.

And, all together now, a long sigh for how nice that snow looks.