Double Warm Hat

This FO is all about me. It's no secret that this winter has hit me hard. I've complained about to everyone I know and complete strangers alike. But in case you missed the memo: I. Hate. Winter.

I don't mind a little cold. Heck, I even like snow. But the kind of bitter cold we've been having this winter just saps my will to live, or, on less melodramatic days, my will to leave the house. 

So I made myself a hat. An extra warm hat. Double warm, if you will. I call it that because it's actually two hats, one inside the other. The pattern comes from Elizabeth Zimmerman's Knitting Without Tears, and like all her patterns, it's delightfully simple.

I made the brown hat first, just a simple roll-brim number  in the size I would normally make it. The only difference was that I used the provisional cast-on instead of my usual long-tail start. Once the brown hat was done, I removed the waste yarn, joined in the blue-gray color and commenced to make the other hat in the opposite direction.

When done, just push one hat inside the other and voila: a doubly warm, fully reversible, awfully cunning hat.

Okay, so there's one thing I like about winter. My new hat.

Beanie

I started out the week planning to make several beanies for various groups that collect hats for kids and teenagers. A crocheted beanie might not be the warmest hat in the world, but in my experience, the warmest hat for a kid is the one that the little scamp will actually wear.

But then, as often happens, my ambitions met my reality, and I only managed to get one made.

In this case, reality intruded in the form of my rusty crochet skills. Once I managed to get going with the hook, I was in to it. Having fun. Hooking along. Hooking along so fast, in fact, that soon I was done, and only then did I notice that the hat I had just whipped out was sized for a baby doll.

Nerds!

So I started over and tried the next hook up the size chart. This time, the resulting beanie (pictured above) appeared human sized.

But I tried it on, and it's way too tight. Plus, it's too short.

Is it possible I need to use a hook 2 sizes larger than the teen-to-adult sized pattern calls for? 

I do tend to work tight, in both knitting and especially crochet. I suffer under the delusion that tight stitches are neat stitches. As far as I'm concerned, drape is expendable in the grim battle for a consistent and uniform fabric.

But...2 sizes?

I'll still send the resulting hat along--maybe it will fit some little tweener's bean.

And then I guess I'll be getting better acquainted with my size K hook.