Quick and Easy Knitting: Big Wool Basic Hats in BAAH Sequoia

For Christmas this year, I got a skein of soft BAAH Sequoia yarn in the Dragontail colorway, a beautiful hand-dyed super bulky merino yarn.  After seeing a sample of Sequoia knit into a Big Wool Basic Hat, a free pattern by Sara Heckman, I knew I wanted to make (at least) one too.

By the time Christmas rolled around, I was ready for some quick and easy knitting and sewing projects.  This pattern was perfect.  Knowing that I am a loose knitter, I took a chance and went down a needle size to US 13’s.  I chose to use double pointed needles instead of circulars because I already had them.  Using the size 13 needles, I got the right gauge.

This pattern is basically a tube with ribbing at one end.  Once you knit to the appropriate length, you run some yarn through the live stitches and draw them tight and tie the yarn off.  It’s nice and easy and quick.  The length the pattern suggests knitting to is 10.5 inches, which I did on my first hat (on the right, above).  It makes for a hat long enough to wear slouchy or to fold up the brim.

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I was on the fence about this, so when I decided to knit a second hat by unravelling a previously made cowl, I made it shorter–only 9 inches long.  This was the perfect length for me to wear the hat with the brim unfolded, which I like better.

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I wore both hats for a while and in the end decided to un-knit my first hat by an inch and a half so that it would also be 9 inches long.  I’m really happy about that decision.

I bought a faux fur pom pom at Pintuck & Purl for my pink hat (also where the yarn and my other pom pom are from).  It attaches with a big snap, which makes it easy to detach if you need to wash your hat.  (You sew half of the snap to your hat–the other half is already attached to the pom pom.)  On the multi-colored hat, I had a rabbit fur pom pom that had a little elastic loop, kind of like a hair tie, so you can tie it into your hat.  I liked the snap better, after trying both, so I bought some big snaps at Walmart and sewed one onto my multi-colored hat and turquoise pom pom, covering up the elastic loop.  This makes for a much more secure attachment, and it’s easier to detach the pom pom now that it has a snap.

I’ve been wearing these hats almost every day.  I love their bright colors and that this hat was so fast and easy to knit.  I would definitely make this pattern with this yarn again.

 

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