Tiny Hat Takeover

My needles have been really busy lately. It's almost a compulsion and it's scaring the family a little bit. I really have no explanation but my best guess is that at a time when there is so much craziness and so many things that are totally beyond my control, this is something that I can control. Completing projects and bringing oder to things feels really good so my needles stay busy. I'm sure that I'll burn out sooner or later and return to my normal sluglike pace.


One thing that freaked the family out recently was the explosion of little hats that started to cover the windowsill near my knitting spot. They were for the Big Knit sponsored by innocent drinks. One day I just started making little hats and I couldn't stop. They were a great stash buster and I used up many of the scraps I'd been saving. You know the ones that were too big to throw away but not big enough to use on a real project. I had tons of them an I dragged them out and plowed through them.


It wasn't just the stashbusting that kept me knitting - these little hats were the perfect palette for me to explore my new fascination with embroidery a little bit. You may remember that I added a flower and a few vines to the back of Stinkerbelle's shrug about a month ago. It was so much fun and looking through Nicky Epstein's book I felt inspired. There have got to be tons of applications for embroidery on knitwear and little hats are just the start.


With the little hats, I got more embroidery books from the library and sat with them, a needle and scraps of leftover yarn and I went to town. I tried bullions, chains, feather stitch, herringbone and more. Some were more successful than others. Some of my favorites are the bullion flower on the brown hat, the stars on the red hat and the flowers on the grey one.

In all I made 12 little hats and no two were alike. I had so much fun and I hope that they help keep some of the elderly in the UK warm this winter.