Messing Around With Hats

During a mad search for leftover Lopi with which to darn my slippers, I came across a couple of skeins of my mother's handspun. Well, I suppose she might have bought it, but I prefer to think that she spun in, or one or the other of us spun it.

I had a couple of beanie caps that weren't worth their weight in wool lying around in the hat drawer. Neither one even came down over the ears. Anyway, it came to me that these skeins would be perfect to make nice fleecy brims for the beanies.

First, the brown one. 

The crown of this hat was first knit by a sister in law in the 1970's. I still remember how bad tempered she was as she knit it. When she finished, she wasn't happy with it either. It was too big for anyone and it kind of flopped. Gorgeous multi coloured coppery yarn though. It came into my possession and I kept it for a few decades in the hat drawer until a few years ago. I frogged that hat and reknit it in a seed stitch ribbing. I liked the resulting fabric, but the hat was too short. I knit on a cuff in dark brown sport weight Brown Sheep. It made me feel like a pin head. 

Now I've undone the sport weight brim and added a curving brim in this very, very soft mystery yarn.

I cast on around the edge of the crown in 5.5 mm needles and knit around 3 times. This created a flat section that curves nicely upward. Then I switched to humungous needles, the biggest I have and knit and purled around 3 or 4 times to create the body of the brim. Lastly, I changed back to the smaller needles knit around once and cast off loosely. This last made the top of the brim pull back in towards the hat. The effect of all this is a rounded brim rather than a thick flat one.

Here's the blue hat. The crown of this hat is knit from a Christmas present one skein of hand painted yarn spun and painted by a student at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. 

And here's a close up of my mother's handspun. Click to embiggen. I wonder what it is?