I've found myself in need of simple knitting again, and this time a skein of Babylonglegs handspun came to the rescue!

These are no fuss Hats. No unusual or tricky techniques, no juggling of stitch patterns or brain-aching maths. No deadlines, charts or expectant publisher. Exactly what I needed.

Aran's Hat has a twisted rib for the body, and Tom's garter stitch. They both have the same low tech stocking stitch crown, with the standard 4 stem balanced decreases (i.e. worked on multiples of 8). They're variants of the same structure. I think the simplicity of the Hats really shows the yarn to it's best, too - the colours are wonderful, with such depth, and could have easily been lost amongst a busy stitch pattern.

It was so nice to take some time out from all the madness and just knit something, anything other than what I should be knitting. It was nice to have the right yarn there and two willing recipients. It was nice to be able to knit two Hats in one day, just like that, without the need to keep ripping them out and making modifications. Just cast on, knit, finish.

But. Old habit's die hard and I've written the pattern. I don't think I know how to knit a Hat without writing a pattern anymore.

And now I don't know what to do. The pattern isn't finished yet, because that would require some thinking and I've been trying to have a break from that these last 2 days. The pattern includes (currently) 4 sizes and 2 body options (i.e. different stitches) with notes on more (as you can see I failed somewhat at not thinking). It's likely I'll add either another size, another body option, or both.

What I'm not sure about is whether I should charge for it, or offer it free. There's value in a well written beginners pattern, and I've learnt that the simple ones are often more popular, but I'd feel cheeky asking folk to pay for something so basic. I'm kinda inclined to offer it for free to balance out the ones I need to start charging for, but I'm also reminding myself that I need to earn some money.

Alternatively, I could submit the pattern somewhere (but who's going to take it now it's public?) or I could donate it, which would be a good compromise.

I'm going to sleep on this, and hope that tomorrow is a better head day! In the meantime, my boys have got new Hats, and with any luck they'll stop trying to steal the ones I need to keep for publication...

PS/ if you were expecting to hear from me these last couple of days, I'm sorry, and will be in touch shortly, I promise. Meltdown was reached, and that needed to be remedied.

PPS/ I suck at taking time out, don't it? I mean, I give myself a day or two off and what do I do? I knit a Hat. Then another Hat. And then I write the pattern. Clearly I need help.