My 15th Handmade Hat

I just finished (at the time of writing) my 15th handmade hat.  I enjoy knitting hats, more than any other knitting project type that I've attempted so far.  Each hat I've made makes me love knitting hats a little bit more than I did before.  I'm guessing there is an upper limit to how much I can love knitting hats, but I don't think I've reached that point yet.

This most recent hat used the Christian's Hat pattern by Ágnes Kutas-Keresztes.  I adjusted the pattern slightly by increasing the stitch count to fit our large heads.  The hat was knit out of Caron Simply Soft Solids in the Ocean 9759 colorway, which is such a vibrant, jewel toned blue that I absolutely adore.  While this is an acrylic yarn, and I'm kind of a yarn-snob, I really enjoy the feel of this yarn, which is why I have a decent amount of it in my stash.  

I used Jeny's stretchy slipknot cast-on, which is amazing.  It did take a few tries to get the hang of it, but it was so very worth it.  I love how this cast on fits in with the ribbing and how stretchy it is.  Some of my earlier hats were not stretchy enough in the cast on, which kept them from fitting well.  This will be my standard cast on for hats from now on.  

The directions for the pattern are very well written, and the texture of the hat makes me happy.  It knit up pretty quickly, as long as I was actually knitting on it.  I watched episodes of Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis, and the Junkyarn Podcast while knitting this.  The pattern was easy enough that I could pay attention to what I was watching without messing up, but was still interesting enough that I would find myself still knitting on it ten minutes after an episode ended and I needed to turn on the next one.  I think this may be another hat pattern that I make more than one of.