Things to do with reclaimed wool
Finally, I’ve completed my hat pattern for a baker boy hat! The design for this hat was inspired by the floppy velvet caps that were fashionable when I was a teenager. Katy, Catherine & I all made & wore them with pride (along with various other amended & tie dyed items of clothing).
This version is far more contemporary. After making a fair few stripey beanies - (I’d altered the pattern to make visor beanies) I wanted something a little more feminine.
Deciding to do some hat observation, just after Christmas I sat in Pizza Express in London & watched people walk past. The resulting pattern combines bits of a few different patterns (newsboy cap peak etc) via trial and error (ie many dissapointments - you can never tell that the hat you’re knitting will make you look like you’re wearing a giant star fish until you’ve actually sewn it up and put it on your head). I made the final tweaks to the design this saturday - while at my grandfathers 80th birthday party, and managed to finish a hat for my mum just before we stepped out of the car in St Ives in Cornwall on Sunday morning.
It really is great to see people wearing something that you’ve made… and not under duress!
The hat has eight identically shaped adjoining segments which are roughly tear shaped, and the peak can be soft or hard (you will need to cut a plastic brim to go inside). The peak is shaped like a lime leaf and folded in half. (I like to knit the brim first, then pick up stitches with a crochet hook and knit the hat from these - though this is a little fiddly) - it is simpler to just stitch it together when you finish the main segment. The brim is approximately 40 rows long. As with the hat, it is knitted in bumpy knit with a like of v’s down the middle.