Most of what I learned from anyone else about knitting hats, I learned from Charlene Schurch.  I used to own her book Hats On and, before I started making up my own hat designs,  I spent a good year or so knitting and re-knitting hats from it.  In this book, she has a wide variety of hat shapes and sizes.  She uses both colour work and pattern stitches very effectively.

I knitted almost every hat in the book at least once and one particular hat (one that you knit the persons name in), I made over and over again for all kinds of different people.  I know I made that particular hat at least a dozen times.  This is really the only hat book I ever used much.  I think if anyone was going to own only one hat book, this would be a very good choice, even though it was written quite some time ago.   I lost my copy years ago and never actually replaced it because I don’t use patterns anymore myself.  I ordered it from the library so I could write this post and I realize I am still very influenced by her.

Using this book,  I got a really good feeling for how hats work and, after a while, I gained the confidence to strike out on my own and make up my own hats.  I have figured out a lot about hats myself since I started making my own.  I have noticed that she has moved on to socks and other knitting pursuits.  I am still mostly all about the hats myself…