It seems to me that one of the most interesting — and potentially fun — challenges in all of knitting is designing the crown of a hat. That is: taking whatever stitch pattern you’ve used for the tube portion of the hat and figuring out how to get it to artfully narrow to nothing within the few inches of the crown. Loads of hats avoid the issue altogether by having you, the knitter, simply stop whatever interesting thing you’ve been doing and switch to stockinette for the crown. And there’s nothing wrong with that. But I’m always wowed by designers who step up to the challenge — often making the crown the most beautiful and interesting part of the whole hat. These four great examples have floated across my screen lately, all of which happen to take a “star” approach, so I just wanted to take a moment to point at them and clap.

TOP: Tea Jenny by Kate Davies (who’s always good at crowns)
MIDDLE LEFT: Lowbrow Hat by Thao Nguyen (to go with your fave from the cowls roundup)
MIDDLE RIGHT: Gwyneth by Leah McGlone (I’m dying to knit this!)
BOTTOM: Fjordland by Dianna Walla (from Pom Pom 7)

I’m sure you’ve all got loads more examples of outstanding crowns, and I hope you’ll share them in the comments.

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ICYMI this week is more (gift-worthy) beanies: Beautifully textured hats.