The hats just keep getting bigger and bigger..!

Now, Mr B loves his socks as I’ve mentioned several times before. But that’s where his love of handknits ends, pretty much. I have offered to make him hats in the past, but he’s wanted them to be black and 4ply (fingering) weight yarn and very, very plain. I did once actually haggle him up to aran weight with cables, though still black, and ended up with a lovely hat which he wore once and then got it mixed up with the rest of the washing so it ended up being felted.

Since I am on a hat knitting kick, I thought I’d ask again. His main problem is that he doesn’t want a beanie shape, which is pretty much 99% of all manly hat patterns. I suggested a few patterns, but all were deemed too much like a beanie. He has a dread of looking like Benny from Crossroads: that man singlehandedly ruined a hat style for an entire generation of British men. You’d think after 20 years that it wouldn’t be a concern, though.

Anyway, in despair, I handed Mr B a sheet of paper and told him to draw the shape he wanted. So he did.

Using these (not very) informative sketches as a guide, I went on Ravelry. After searching through the two pages of patterns tagged with “men” gave no results, I took a deep breath and began to search through every. hat. pattern. Finally, after calling him over half a dozen times to see a potential hat, this one made Mr B do a happy, hat-finding dance around the room and the Quest for the Perfect Hat was over.

I’m not knitting the pattern quite as it’s written. My tension is looser to allow for a bigger head (!), and I’m not faffing about with knitting the lining, but just doing a small fold over hem instead.

See! It’s not black! Mr B agreed not to have a black hat, as long as there was a “bit” of black on the hat. Truth is, he has very dark brown/black hair, so wearing a black hat just makes him look like he’s got a really strange hairstyle. So I opted for charcoal grey (and black for the stripes) Cygnet Wool Rich Aran, which is very much like sock yarn only thicker, in that it’s 75% wool, 25% nylon. Being machine washable and moderately tough, I won’t worry about the finished hat being stuffed in a coat pocket after being used to clean the car windscreen…