My name is Robyn, and I make hats. I make hats on repeat, at least one hat-in-progress always on my knitting needles, piles of finished hats on our desk, our dining room table, and in bins waiting to be donated. Almost every hat I make is given away to someone in need, with the remaining few given to friends and family. It’s a compulsion, some might even say an obsession – I simply keep knitting.
I started knitting hats in earnest back in 2009. Newly married and looking for a new challenge, I decided to knit 100 hats for 100 people in one year, using 100 different patterns. That project, completed on September 1, 2010, changed my life.
Since 2010, I’ve made close to 700 more hats, working slowly but surely towards my goal to make 10,000 hats in my lifetime!
I started blogging at She Makes Hats around the same time I began the One Hundred Hats project. What started as a way to keep track of the hats I was making has blossomed into a website dedicated to not only sharing the hats I’m making, but also a space to encourage folks to knit more hats and give them away. I share hat patterns, charities that accept finished hats, and share some of the tips and tricks I’ve picked up along the way.
People often ask me, why hats? The short answer is hats are simple — they take just one skein of yarn, can be carried with you wherever you go, and don’t need any special measurements.
Most people’s heads fall under one of three or four sizes (baby, child, smaller adult, larger adult) so you can be fairly certain the hat you’ve made will fit one of these four sizes of person depending on the number of stitches on your needle.
Hats can do quite a bit to keep a person warm. Little babies have a hard time regulating their temperature, so a hat can mean the difference between health and sickness. For folks living on the street, a hat can help stave off sickness in the coldest of temperatures. Naval ships run cold so a hat can help keep soldiers warm while on and off duty. For folks dealing with a wide variety of illnesses, a hat can not only help keep them warm through treatments, but can be a reminder that they are still seen and valued as more than their diagnosis.
I’m excited to share my first book, She Makes Hats
knitter, then a wife and mother. I share some of my favorite hat-making stories with the hope that I can encourage more folks to cast on a hat they plan to give away!
To celebrate my book, I’m giving away two copies to New Nostalgia readers, with a bunch of ways to enter to win!
If you would rather not wait and want to purchase my book now, buy She Makes Hats
