Dulaan

I've been knitting items for the Dulaan Project for over a year and this week I sent off a box of 20 hats and 1 scarf. Most of the hats were knit following the Needle Beetle Seaman's Cap pattern but the cabled ones are from the first SnB book.
Several of the hats were knit in worsted weight wool I bought on ebay and dyed myself. Others were knit with yarn from recycled sweaters. The blue and light purple hat follows the Seaman's Cap pattern but contains a fair isle pattern of my own design which, unfortunately, does not show well in the photo.
The most fun to knit was the red, white and black one. It is the Match My Coat Cap, also from Needle Beetle (I left off the pom-pom). The scarf is plain st.st. knit in the round in a beautiful pale blue wool/angora mix that I recycled from a thrift store sweater. Too bad the bright sunlight washed out the color in the photo.

I knit so many hats because for me they are the perfect portable project. Since I use 16" circular needles until the very end I never need worry I'll lose a needle. I long ago memorized the NB Seaman's Cap pattern and can adapt the length before the decreases to the size I'm making. When I cast on each hat I clip a set of six stitch markers to the bottom edge. When I'm ready to start my decreases the markers I need are right at hand. I do the last few rounds on double pointed needles at home.