Red is my favorite color. Red. Any shade of red. Crimson, scarlet, cardinal, maroon, burgundy, cerise, flame, auburn, garnet, ruby, vermillion, rose red, lipstick red, fire engine red, apple red, brick red… You get the idea. I love red. And it shows in my knitting. Here’s a sampling of some of my red hats.
Yes, it’s the Joe Cool pattern again, this time worked in Brown Sheep Nature Spun worsted weight in Scarlet (which is a gorgeous deep crimson color) and Natural. There’s nothing quite like white to make red really pop.
While I was working with these lovely colors of Nature Spun, I couldn’t help but think how well they match Oklahoma University’s crimson and cream. Although I am by no means an Oklahoma fan–OU is among my least favorite college footbal teams– my brother-in-law is a rabid OU fan, so I decided to bite the bullet and knit him an OU hat. Hey, at least I was knitting with colors I loved. LOL Anyway, I designed a simple OU logo chart and cast on 120 stitches, knitted a fold-up 2 x 2 ribbing, did the stranded colorwork, and finished up with the crown increases. And, voilà! The Boomer Sooner Hat is born.
The pattern for the Boomer Sooner Hat can be downloaded for free from the Patterns section of All Kinds Of Knitting.
Red is definitely a superstar color, but it doesn’t always have to hog the limelight. Sometimes is it quite happy to take a supporting role. In the Red Hearts Hat, the lovely orangy-red Nature Spun (Husker Red) shares the stage with some adorable little red heart-shaped buttons on a backdrop of black. This is a button-tab hat with a little stranded colorwork added; simple to make, stunning to wear. 🙂
Years ago, I bought some Brown Sheep Lamb’s Pride worsted-weight wool in a dark red called Spice. I purchased the yarn specifically to knit a sweater that I gave to my younger sister. When the sweater was finished, I had nearly three balls of yarn left over. Well before my hat-knitting frenzy began, I saw a hat pattern that I thought would be perfect for the left-over yarn, and I planned to make my sister a hat to match her nice, warm, cozy sweater. But, meh! Hats? Who wants to knit hats? The yarn and pattern sat in my project cue for months and months. Then the Stanley Cup Playoffs Hat Trick began. I discovered the joy of knitting hats. So, finally, this hat got made.
The pattern is called Lock Gate, and I found it in the British knitting magazine Yarn Forward, No. 8, January 2009. Since that time, it has also become available on Ravelry under the name Redundancy by Sarah Wilson. The pattern is written for Brown Sheep Nature Spun, but because I was using Brown Sheep Lamb’s Pride, which is more of an Aran-weight than a worsted weight, so I cast on fewer stitches (101), but otherwise I followed the directions. The cable may look complicated, but it is actually a very simple 1/1 that can easily be done without using a cable needle. I apologize for the not-so-great quality of the picture. The hat is no longer in my possession, so I can make another stab at getting a decent picture.
Whew! That was a hat whirlwind! Thanks for sticking with me to the end. 🙂
All Kinds Of Knitting 