Racing Stripe Beanie

The hats have been flying off my needles lately-- I finally decided to take the tersely-worded advice of one of my knitting friends: "Beanies." The one-hat deficit that August inherited from July has been made good... yes, friends, the word of the day, week, and month is beanies!

Starting with an utterly boring but (I think) stunningly perfect example of the genre, made from stash and scrap yarn and my own basic recipe:

For the record, he asked to be posed in front of the flowerbed!

It took me three tries to get the stripes just right-- isn't it funny how something as simple as a stripe can be so tricky? How one row more or less of a color can be either horribly wrong or magically right?

The yarn is Knitpicks City Tweed-- with a wee bit of Quince & Co. Osprey.

I have also been pondering the ideal depth of the beanie-- should it cover the ears entirely? Or leave just a bit peeking out? A folded brim cap gives one options, but the beanie must take a stand. Personally, I like a beanie that grazes the top of my earlobe-- any longer and my earrings get caught in the brim.

An earlobe is a very strange looking thing, no? Perhaps it should be covered...

I still have some July (and June!) hats to catch up on, but I'm nearing the home stretch-- only 16 hats to go!