Yep, another hat. But I needed a nice travel project (Mr. Pieknits and I were lucky enough to go to Hawaii for a week!) and I’ve never worked a sideways  hat pattern before. See valid excuses to add to my overflowing hat bin correct?

The pattern, Marina, is by the Hat Master Woolly Wormhead. This the the Slouchy Beanie version, size Medium. A great travel knit that was nice and straight forward yet still interesting. Just what I needed for two 8 hour flights. The Seafoam Stitch creates a cool open lace like effect using dropped Yarn Overs (always entertaining to do).

The yarn is a skein of Araucania Nature Wool I picked up at our LYS years ago, unable to resist my favorite greens. I had hoped the color segments were longer to produce a more striped effect but this pattern would work great with about any type of variegated yarn.

I actually had no mods to this pattern, a bit of a rarity for me. Really a very nice pattern and clear grafting instructions included as well.

And just for fun, a shot of us at the North Shore on Oahu (also in the photo, my Adorn Cropped Jacket (still love) and my tropical tie-purse from the 1950s swap).

Also, in other news my 1940s style title hat is a Craftster Best of 2011 Winner! Follow the badge link to check out all the winners, great stuff this year!

After a somewhat disgraceful delay, I finally finished the second part of a hat project for my friend. I first posted about it here with the completion of the pictured grey hat. So the request was for two hats that could be worn together for extra warmth- like an outer hat and liner, or individually. The first hat is the Fortnight pattern in Madelinetosh Tosh Vintage with Cascade 220 Superwash in Really Red as the accent color.

For the inside hat, I used the same Cascade 220 to match the other hat. I liked the Superwash option for the next-to-skin hat as I figure it’s more likely to need a washing. This pattern is Rib-A-Roni by Knit Jane Knit. I made the largest size (in the Ravelry PDF version) and modified the pattern to include short rows to match the shaping that comes down over the ears in the Fortnight hat, so when worn together the bottoms line up. With this size it creates a pretty large rib; I ended picking up a row along the cast-on edge and crocheting a bound off chain to help keep the edge from curling.

He seems to like them and commented that it’s “the warmest hat I’ve ever had”. I’ll count that as a success!