Sometimes events conspire to make for the perfect weekend, and such was the case for me, when, after a much appreciated dinner out, I encountered this vision on the corner of East Hargett & Wilmington, in downtown Raleigh:

Home to Holly Aiken’s enterprise, “Stitch,” features bags designed and built in North Carolina, and a totally awesome dog in the window of her shop.

And that is what my entire weekend was like, small moments of magic woven into the larger tapestry that is life.

Currently, I am trying to conjure some magic of my own by getting my yarn in order, and as I have done the previous two years I have dedicated November to making projects exclusively from my yarn stash, and one such remnant of my stash was a partial skein of Red Heart Super Saver medium thyme that has spent at least eight weeks on the top of the piano waiting to tangle .

Using an H hook, and Beth Hall’s brilliant Crochet Seafarer’s Cap pattern, I managed to foil the yarn’s plans to bedevil me and instead crocheted a hat.

Here it is before joining:

Here it is after the joining with the brim down:

and here it is with the brimmed turned up as it would be when worn:

The first time I made this hat, I used a lovely blue dk weight rayon wool blend that required that I hold two strands of yarn at a time. The strands were slippery, and would sometimes get knotted together in ways that were not helpful.

The resulting hat was spectacular, but it has not the most carefree of projects to make. This time, by using a worsted yarn, I was able to get the hat done in less than a day’s time (although I spread it out over two days), and there was a joy to its simplicity.

The other project that would not let me rest this weekend was yet another scrap buster hat made using Jenna Wingate’s tutorial/pattern.

I had wanted to make something for a cousin who is a rather avid art and flamingo collector, and there was something about the shape of the hat combined with its scrap aesthetic that I thought my cousin would appreciate.

By late yesterday afternoon, I had finished with the body of the hat:

but had not yet woven in all of the ends:

There really aren’t the words to say how much I appreciate the generosity of designers like Beth Hall and Jenna Wingate who have patterns that they are willing to share with crocheters everywhere. While I would be more than happy to have purchased these patterns to add to my collection, there is something very special about community crochet patterns such as these that allow all of us to come together and work to make the world a better place, on stitch at a time.