Surefire Hat

Hi Knitters,
Well, you know you have something good when as soon as you finish you get a request for another one. That's exactly what happened with this hat design I knitted this past week for my teenagers. It's a sure-fire hat! I made the dark brown ear-flapped hat first for my oldest son. He is a swimmer for the high school team and his coach requires the boys to wear hats outside at all times. I, of course, love this requirement.

Immediately upon the completion of hat #1 my other son wanted the same hat. Some slight arguing ensued about not having the exact same hat which is understandable. My oldest son had a big part in the planning, color selection and design of his hat. I quickly came up with the idea to use the same colors, only place them in a different pattern. I'm smart like that sometimes (just kidding, any fool could figure that out).

The hats are a big success, thus the name Surefire Hat. The definition of surefire is: certain to get successful or expected results. This hat is fast and easy. I used Tahki Donegal Tweed and US size 8 needles for a quick, quick knit. I lined them both in gray fleece for extra warmth, gotta have that in this neck of the woods.I have a new tool in my repertoire. It is called the incredible rope maker. Move over pom-tree there's a new love in town. I will do a demo of this one soon. It is slick and I got it here. I made the long ties with this and again, love. The best part of this is that you need two people to make the rope (for the twisting part), although I am certain I could manage on my own, but my daughter just loves to join in. The ropes are easy to make and they look so professional, impressive invention. I'm just saying you may want to get one and get one quick! I am seeing endless possibilities.

I am almost hesitant to say this but I am going to make available some down loadable patterns for purchase from my blog and this hat and the teddy bear sweater (remember that?) are the first two patterns in line. I'll tell you what, we had a couple of months of trying to get the paypal system in place but I finally think it is set. What happened is that we missed a deadline for a response because we went on vacation. We had to start from scratch with the process but since paypal already had some of our info. in the system it wouldn't let us continue. After multiple lengthy phone calls, faxes (including a few lost faxes), computer time, etc. I think we are cleared to go. I will attempt to get these patterns written and available very soon. This puts the pressure on which is good. I will continue to add free patterns to the blog as well. I think that makes things more fun.

Here is another project I had buried in a long line of dream knits. I finally got the chance to start working on it. I mentioned my quest to get the yarn for this pattern way last spring. I looked high and low to find a shop that had enough Rowan Scottish Tweed DK to complete this project as it takes about 21 balls. I finally found it from here, what great service and selection. This is my kind of yarn. I have such a thing for simple cables in luscious tweed. Then again who doesn't? I can never get enough. The pattern is the Cabled Blanket Coat by Sarah Dallas in the Scottish Inspirations book, filled with many more great designs. The cabled coat is the perfect pattern in my eyes. Ooh La La! I can't wait to wrap up in this sweater next to the fire with a hot cocoa in hand. Maybe I'll even get extra marshmallows. It is good to dream big...

best, susie

p.s. You can now subscribe to my blog (see sidebar). My son worked on getting the RSS feed in place and it is now working. There are two different ways to subscribe although I think most knitters are doing it through the email entry at the top of the sidebar.

p.p.s. Check out this for more fun information on the top 100 knitting blogs. It is official, I am now addicted to this site. I am reading some of the most fun, interesting, inventive knitting blogs ever due to knitting friends.