Knitting Gifts Archives ⋆ Page 2 of 2 ⋆ Knitting with Anita

Necessity is Truly the Mother of Invention! A few weeks ago, I received a Facebook message from our eldest daughter, Marci. Her boyfriend’s birthday was coming up in April and she asked me to knit him a hat, in burgundy/maroon yarn. Being the horrible procrastinator that I am, I assured her that I had plenty of yarn in burgundy and could easily get the hat done. So a couple of weeks ago I started pawing through my yarn stashes (yes, I have more than one!). To my outer dismay and my inner glee, I found nothing that would be appropriate for the hat that I tenuously had in mind…which, of course, necessitated a trip to my local Hobby Lobby for a ball or two of yarn that would fit the idea I had in mind. The Process Begins Yarn in hand, I started searching through the HUNDREDS of knitting patterns in my pattern library for the “right hat.” I still wasn’t sure exactly what I wanted to knit for Russ (the boyfriend), but I believed I would know it when I saw it. Nothing. Not a problem! I thought. Good old Google could solve this problem! There must be millions of knitted hat patterns on Google. (Yes, there are millions.) I found a free pattern for a ribbed hat. Feeling hopeful, I cast on the required stitches, knitted a few rows (in the round, of course—the ONLY way to knit a hat!), and found myself thoroughly bored with the pattern. Marci indicated that he would prefer something simple, although I didn’t have the presence of mind to thoroughly question her about the design. But as a knitter, I knew that this ridiculously boring and not very attractive hat would drive me completely bonkers if I had to make the entire hat out of it! I decided to further my research. I found a cabled hat that I liked, but holy cow! It was knitted on size 3 needles with tiny yarn and required 135 cast-on stitches! I could see myself working on this hat for a decade! (Only a slight exaggeration.) Ta Da! A Solution! So the thought occurred to me: “If you can’t find a reasonable pattern that you like, why not design your own pattern?” Surprisingly, I found that idea quite appealing. I scribbled an alternative pattern on the boring ribbed hat pattern I had printed, and voila! Here is a picture of my Cables & Ribs Hat modeled by my handsome Hubby. If you would like a copy of the pattern, it's available here on Ravelry.