Fifteen, Sixteen

I'm on track to knit 21 hats in 2021 - fifteen and sixteen have come off the needles! They are both very simple hats.

Hat #15 is yet another Sockhead Slouch (my eleventh one). Nothing special about the pattern, but the yarn is super special! This is a limited colorway from Neighborhood Fiber Co. called Fair Fight. It was dyed by color master Karida Collins to honor Stacey Abrams' amazing organization in Georgia. My sister lives in Atlanta and has worked on a bunch of "get out the vote" campaigns over the past 4 years. I sent her a picture of the yarn and she loved it, so I bought it.

You could get this colorway on any base, but I chose Organic Studio Sock. Atlanta isn't known for its cold weather, so a thin hat seemed to be in order. My sister wanted something simple, so Sockhead Slouch it was (though this isn't her in the photo):

I loved knitting every stitch of this. The yarn felt great in my hands, and the tonal variation of all the blues, with some purple speckles, was entertaining. Plus, I thought a lot about the impact Stacey Abrams has had on all our lives. For my Pennsylvania readers, have you heard about the New Pennsylvania Project, which is modeled after Abrams' New Georgia Project and Fair Fight? Something to watch!

Hat #16 is another design by Woolly Wormhead. She had a sale this summer, so I bought a couple of patterns after matching them with yarn in stash. The first one is this Waffle Slouch, worked in worsted weight yarn. I still had some handspun, undyed BFL left over from Katara #2 (Rav link), and it worked perfectly for this. The pattern is a grid (like waffles), but it's an open grid (like a screen). It reminds me of those old-fashioned snoods. I finished knitting this hat during a meeting at work, and I slipped it onto my head to see if it fit. My colleague exclaimed over it, and I immediately handed it over - I didn't even block it! She is one of two friends who adores any shade of brown, so it was fitting that these two individuals are now the owners of Katara #2 and Waffle Slouch. I could not be happier to have the yarn out of stash and out of my house.

I've now knit 12 of Woolly Wormhead's hat designs, and I have two more patterns waiting in the wings. The other pattern I bought at her summer sale is the Get Garter Beret (which sounds a lot more simple than it looks) - it's made with fingering yarn. Just today, she released the Square Cubed design with a discount for newsletter subscribers, and I scooped that up, too. It is a stranded design, also made with fingering yarn.

Even as I explore other Woolly Wormhead patterns, I keep returning to the Elemental collection. The 3 hats I made with Elsebeth Lavold Silky Wool had excellent drape and softness. I decided that Silky Wool is the ideal yarn for these designs, so I bought more. I got 11 skeins in 5 colors. This isn't the best photo I've ever taken, but it gives you an idea of the range. The colors are: Medium Gray, Oxblood, Wasabi, Larkspur, and Blue Spruce.

And I still have some in Blackcurrant and Verdigris!

Yeah, I don't think it will be any trouble to get to 21 hats in 2021...