I have made quite a few projects in the last month and I am excited to share the patterns with you and let you know how they worked up for me!

First was Little Lindy's Aviator By Salena Baca. It was a free pattern offered by Red Heart Yarns on their site here. It can also be found here on Ravelry.

It worked up really nicely. I like the layout of red heart patterns. I worked the forehead flap in pipsqueak by Bernat, it turned out super super cute! It was a bit difficult to see the stitches in the pipsqueak yarn but totally worth it for how it turned out!

Some things to know about this pattern

1. There really isn't a yardage given. It just says you'll need a skein of the heather gray and one of soft white. I made the largest size, child, and I didn't use even half of the heather gray, which was 236 yds total. The pipsqueak I maybe used a quarter of the skein. It really doesn't take much. I think you could easily get 2 complete hats from the yarn required. 
2. The way the pdf opens in landscape view makes the print very small which can be hard to read if you print the pattern, I chose to save the download on my ipad so I could zoom in to make the print larger. 
3. You may just squeal at the cuteness of this hat! I really can't wait to see this on the baby it was ordered for!! And because it looks silly on my adult foam head.

Over all I really liked this pattern and will definitely use it again. 

Ok this order also included a couple of knight helmet hats! I love how these turned out!! 

The pattern is Knight Hat by Adriana Bon which I found on Ravelry. This is a free pattern. Now normally I have a few things I look for when picking a pattern

• What the customer asked for - This may sound simple but really its the first requirement for a pattern, how well it fits what was asked for. Sometimes I will get sent a picture of a cute knitted hat....then I have to find a crochet pattern that is as close to the knitted picture as possible. And that isn't always easy to do!
• The designer - This is a biggie for me, I like to use patterns by designers I know. This makes it easier to work up because then I already know their writing style and what mistakes to watch for (yes even the best designers sometimes make mistakes...it happens...I don't judge too harshly on that) it seems like 4-5 new designers pop up every day so I really try to go with tried and true designers I have worked patterns by before, just to save myself from headaches and repeated frogging.
• Projects made from the pattern - especially when I am looking on Ravelry I look for patterns with at least a few finished projects, or for the pattern photos to be of different projects made from that pattern (this lets me know its been tested) If a pattern has no finished projects and only one set of photos it concerns me that it is not a well tested pattern and may have errors. 
• Cost - I know for a lot of people cost is first priority, but for me I would rather pay for a well tested pattern from a reputable designer than grab the first freebie I find. However I have found some of my very favorite designers by trying one of their free patterns!! 

All these things taken into consideration and I still ended up using 

• a free pattern
• an unknown designer
• with no photos of finished projects
• only one pattern photo (which suggests to me no testing)

But this is not a horror story! Were there some errors? Yes. Were they deal breakers? No!! This pattern is a pretty straight forward beanie pattern with some shaping around the neck. It is offered in 2 styles; using hdc or dc, and offered in a wide range of sizes. 

I chose to use the hdc style and made it in two different sizes as was requested in the order, adult small and adult large.

Some things I liked about this pattern were; It was written out nicely, it had stitch counts at the end of each row, it had clear notes about it not being worked in joined rounds, rather it was worked in a spiral, I really like how the crest is worked and folded in half, making it nice and stiff on top of the hat, and it had a nice drawing of how to rejoin in the right place to do the neck piece. 

However there were a few things that were issues for me. The stitch count for the increases on the adult small were off. It said the last increase round (rnd 9) leaves you with 70 stitches however the math doesn't add up to 70 it only works out to 68. I did finish the hat at the 68 stitches and it still fits nicely.

Also the yardage states 300-400 yards, this hat maybe used 200 yards and that was at the largest size. 

For the crest there is multiple stitch counts given depending on the hat size, I found that the medium length (toddler) was fine for both the adult small and adult large. 

Over all I am very glad I gave this pattern a try! I will let the designer know about the error on the stitch count and let her know how much I enjoyed her pattern! I am always glad to find a free pattern that works out so nicely. 

If you are ever in need of a Knight Hat I highly recommend this pattern!