Christmas FO: A Trio of Hats

Once I completed Shannon's scarf, I started getting serious about a gift for her husband. I asked all my sisters what their men might like, and most of them said a hat. In the case of Shannon's husband, she said he would want a beanie that was blue or gray. I had several skeins of Lion Brand Hometown USA in Dallas Gray in my stash that I knew would work great - it was the requested color and would knit up quickly- double score! 

I searched Ravelry for man-ish looking beanie patterns that were made for super chunky yarn and weren't too boring but also not too complicated. I settled on The Perfect Tuque by Homespooled which is a free download. The pattern was incredibly simple - k1 p1 one row, knit the next - but added a really neat texture that I thought would jazz things up a bit more. I knitted this hat for Shannon's husband in about 3 hours or so and I really liked the result. It was warm, looked like a guy would wear it, and it was fast to make. So when I started making decisions about my other brothers-in-law, the choice was simple...

My sister Marisa specifically said that her husband would like a gray beanie that was fairly simple. How much closer could I get?! I decided to use the rest of my Dallas Gray yarn and make a copy of the first hat. At that point I was much faster at whipping this pattern out, so this one only took me about 2 hours. Woo hoo!

A few weeks later I found myself with another brother-in-law on my list that I had no gift for. He tends to go on trips up north with my sister-in-law a few times a year, so I thought he might also like one of these hats. I decided to go with the Oakland Black colorway (also in my stash for years) since I see him wear more black than anything. I still haven't seen him to give him his gift (shh! don't tell him please, lol).

So there were 3 more gifts off my list to make :)