Another 100 hats knit!

 Hi All,

I have been on another hat knitting binge! Just finished the 100 hats I will send to Country Knitting of Maine this year. Since we spent some time in Florida I had to hand knit hats while there.

The character hats were from kits. The pink ribbed, blue ribbed and others in this photo were hand knit because I had no machine or possibly the yarns were too thick for the machine. I am very adaptable in trying to turn yarn into hats!

 I had taken all my machines to my home in Raleigh, NC. After a while I was having withdrawal symptoms from being away from my machines. So...…. I purchased a Sentro plastic circular knitting machine because it was so cheap! I then tried to use up some of the leftover yarn I had with me in Florida. 

That was a lot of fun and a lot of learning!

• Yes, there were a lot of mistakes such as dropped stitches or tucked stitches as I learned what yarns work best on this machine which is so different from my brother, SR, and Passap machines!

Well, as time went by we returned to Raleigh in March and I left the Sentro in Florida, on purpose. 

I knit a few hats on my brother electronic machine at the Knit In in April. Then I was back at home finishing those hats with long floats (some of them I did in Ladder Jacquard and others I finished by sewing over the floats with my sewing machine) and doing more handknitting. 

Here are the hats with the long floats I made from Gini Woodward stitch designs. She had used these designs on sweaters but I made them into hats. 

When May and June arrived I cleared off my Passap and knit my favorite Fisherman's rib hats (about 24 of them!) 

I also used my garter carriage to knit ribbed hats while I read books or watched TV <G> 

But, I was missing my Sentro, so I bought another one...Hey, there was a sale and it cost less than $40!!

I do love churning out tube hats while I watch or listen to the TV. That plastic machine knits very quietly! Yes, some of these might already be posted above. I have a lot of yarn here in Raleigh so I was using quite a variety of them in these hats. Some did not even have labels!! I had gotten some fur pom poms last year, so I was happy sticking them on the top of some of the hats. I have even ordered more to use on future hats. 

My newest Sentro works better than the one in Florida. It is possible that because of my inexperience with this type of fragile plastic machine that I caused damage to the plastic gears of that machine. I now know to be more gentle when cranking out the hats. In fact my latest hats are knit without unexpected tucking or dropping of stitches. I don't even need the weights (those clamps you can see in the first Sentro photo) I have even experimented with using 3 cones of thin yarn at the same time to make a marled effect. 

I have finished the 100 hats for this year, and am starting on the 100 for next year!