Some Small Hats

I am glad for the need of hats as usually those are the first categories filled when I donate to charities, and it helps me to have mindless items to work on during bible study class and so on.  These are not great photos but show my progress so far.  I am using 100% wool worsted, DK, and sport yarns by Patons or Brown Sheep, and sock yarns of 75-100% wool.  It's a great way to use up oddballs and remnants!

The center hat in the photo at left is out of sock yarn alone, and while I think it's cute and it did come out newborn size, that was pretty fiddly.  It also needs to be blocked.  The four around it are crocheted and slightly different sizes depending upon whether they are DK or worsted weight yarns.  They work up very quickly, especially now that I have the pattern memorized.

All of these, and about half of the ones in the picture below, need to have ends run in, I'll get that done and mail them all this weekend.

The hats below are a basic watchcap pattern, made with two or three strands of sock yarn, or one of sock yarn and one of a sport or DK solid colour yarn, or a single strand of worsted.  I use 56 or 64 stitches and they go pretty quickly.  Sizes range from about 11" to about 15".

The watchcaps are mostly folded in quarters to fit them into the photograph more easily.  I made them all with a deep ribbing that will hold the hats in place and can be folded down as the child grows and needs a bigger hat.  Most have the ribbing down and are about 7.5" long from top to edge.

I love the one second from the right in the top row.  It is a 100% merino wool handdyed yarn that was sent to someone in the KnitTalk list annual gift swap, and she made a fit and said it was horrible and she didn't want it.  I stepped in and said I would take it and send something to her in exchange.  I think she cut the hank when she opened the package and didn't want to admit it, but most of the hank is fine and it was a treat to knit.  I used it multi-strand because I didn't want to do another hat in a single strand of sock yarn!

You can see some of the yarn used in the crocheted and knitted hats also.  I expect I will have a few more done before I get the package into the mail.  Hopefully they will be useful to the mothers.