Hats!

Well, thanks to DH - I'm making a hat out of the rest of the patriot red. The cabled, single tassled hat from Hip to Knit (see the picture of J in A's green hat at the bottom? Like that, but one tassle). I'm still on the fence about it, though. I like that it's a quick pattern and has the seed stitches in the field, but.....I'm just not sure.

Here's what I need to figure out: 1. I need to find an interesting/cute/easy/fun/simple scalable pattern for a hat for a grown person and a kid. I've been reading various ribbed hat patterns and stockingette rolled brim ones, and it looks like the trick is in figuring out the fancy decreases. Maybe I should actually read the directions in Hip to Knit (or the other book I have on my shelf - Knitting in Plain English, I think) instead of just looking at pictures. Go figure.

And, inspired by the patterns I've been reading - I bought pretty needles in sizes 7, 8, and 9. I tend to knit everything on 10 or bigger. Smaller than that tends to make my hands hurt after a while. Hey. I type and mouse for a living and knit for a hobby. The stuff I usually do is not too dependant on gauge, however, hats look like it matters. So, not much on gauge and I really lose my place on multi-row patterns pretty quickly. I bought myself a row-counter too. I can't wait to use it!

OK. Gonna go peruse my pattern-stash.