Yep, more hats

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This is Concentric, my first Woolly Wormhead knitted hat. Woolly, or maybe I should adopt the NY Times style and say, Ms. Wormhead, thinks of herself as a “hat architect.” She “builds them with her head” and “constructs them with her hands.” Looking at her hundreds of hat patterns on Ravelry and her own website, I’ll accept that hat architect label. Heck, she is sort of the hat whisperer.

But despite the knitting kingdom’s many hats off to Wormhead, Concentric was the first pattern I tried. I like it.

Mine is knit in Stonehedge Fiber’s Shepherds Wool worsted. The Lakeshore colorway is a favorite. Glass head likes it because it matches her cheek so nicely.

This is  top down construction, so here’s a look at the top:

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And now the top all nice and concentrically rounded:

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A great hat. If you give it a whirl, be careful to bind off very loosely. I knit the hat on US size 7 needles and switched to a size 9 for the bind-off. It’s still a tad tight.

Now for something completely different.

When Berroco’s newsletter arrived with news of the free Memphre pattern a few weeks back, it quickly went into my Ravelry queue. It’s inspired by classic gansey stitch patterns,

Soon I was in a shop that stocked Berroco’s fairly new Artisan yarn–the very yarn the pattern calls for. Two skeins insinuated themselves into my basket and this is the result:

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Artisan is an 80% merino, 20% silk, worsted weight. It’s a tad slubby, which I’m supposing is what makes it artisanal. But, for this hat, I’d have liked a little better stitch definition. Still, I like the hat, the pattern, and the yarn’s OK too.

Here’s a look from above at the excellent, non-pointy, crown decease section.

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I didn’t know what a Memphre is. It’s a long-headed lake monster that some claim lives in Lake Memphremagog in Quebec, Canada. It was first reported in 1816 and was last reported in 2005. Wow. I wonder if Berroco knows about that.