My abundance of green colored yarns inspired my newest design: Alpinia Hat. This pattern calls for 8 colors: a main color for the ribbing and back ground, 4 greens for the stem/leaves, and 3 flower colors. I made the “blooms” with red and oranges but you could use any scrap colors you have around. For the bloom colors you only need 11 yards of 3 colors each. With the 4 green colors, you only need 20 yards of each. The flowers could be in pinks or yellows or lavenders–any colors really. When substituting colors, consider keeping the values/shades close to the original pattern.

This is a basic charted pattern using fingering weight yarn. Only 2 color strands are used at a time. There are lots of color changes though and if you make this hat you will enjoy it more if you know (or learn!) how to weave in ends as you go.

Here’s the free pattern for you to enjoy. If you make this hat, please share a photo of it with me or post it on Ravelry.

There are many colors in my yarn collection that I consider “accent” colors. Yellow, orange, red, and bright peach are a few colors I rarely use. This time, however, I used them all at once. Except for the dark gray color, the rest of the palette for this hat is BRIGHT. This is how I came up with the hat I call Foreign Accents.

For me personally, this is the best fitting hat that I’ve made. I used smaller needles (size 2) for the corrugated ribbing which makes the hat fit nicely. I used my balloon trick for blocking: soak the hat, squish out the water, fit the hat over a balloon that measures 1 inch less in diameter than your head. Let it dry like that.

I’ve written up the pattern and I’m sharing it here for anyone who would like to make it. My advice for knitters using this pattern is to learn to weave in your color changes as you go. There’s lots of ways to do this and the internet is full of tutorials. I know we all have different techniques that accomplish the same task, that’s why it’s only a suggestion. Maybe there’s a person who LIKES to weave in all the ends at the end of a project, but that’s not me.

Here’s the FREE pattern for Foreign Accents Hat:

You may know that I love wool and knitting but rock climbing is also at the top of my list. My local craig is Lime Kiln Canyon in Northern Arizona. I live in Nevada but I’m right on the boarder of Arizona and I’m a stone’s throw from Utah. We chose this place to live because it’s close to all our favorite rock climbing areas. We get really great weather here this time of year but if it’s a little cold a nice wool cap will make the hike up to the craig comfortable. But enough about climbing! Let’s talk knitting!

I designed these hats as a way to use up small amounts of yarn. Quick draws and ropes come in all kinds of bright colors so I thought it would be fun to put together a pattern that used up these tiny bright scraps. I used fingering weight 100% wool yarns by Knit Picks.

The first hat I made for myself and I used my favorite dark blue color as the base. After I made my husband a dark green hat I decided it was a slightly better color combination so I used his for the creation of the actual pattern that I wrote. Of course if you make this hat you can use any colors you like.

Here’s the Free Pattern for Rock Climbing Hat. Enjoy!

My hobbies of knit pattern designing and pickleball have bumped into each other. I had wanted to make a pickleball hat for a while and this idea finally came into my head. The challenge was the color yellow. I’m not a big fan of bright yellow so I had to work in other colors that I do like.

I wrote up the pattern and I’m posting it here for free. If you make it please send me a photo or post on Ravelry. Enjoy!