No joke on the amount of knitting I’ve done in the past few months. No. Joke.

I have more finished things to photograph and write up, but I wanted to share these two hats that were sent to my friend along with the Fancy Forest Quilt last week.

The story behind the hats… So back in the summer, Heather received a hat in one of her prenatal appointments. She asked me to make a matching one for Chad, her husband. I went to my favorite yarn stores, and I even looked at the Big Box Craft Stores, but couldn’t find anything that matched the hat she gave me. Figuring that the intent was matching father/son hats, I made a command decision (ha!) while wandering around Fancy Tiger.

The pattern is the Barley hat by Tin Can Knits which is very well written, even for a free pattern. I was able to make both the adult size and baby size with a skein of Madelinetosh DK in Optic – this nice neutral speckled with some grays and blacks. It is lovely and subtle.

On my Amish skein winder, you can see the color distribution better. About that skein winder. I actually like it. I found it on etsy for like $20 and it comes apart and stores very nicely. About that ball winder – I’m not a fan. I bought it with a 50% off coupon at Joann’s and it does an OK job. It seems pretty small, and winding standard hanks (roughly 220 yards in DK) results in a sloppy looking yarn cake. It works well enough, but I’m definitely in the market for a better yarn winder.