Grandaddy's Hat

 Somebody in my family gives my grandfather a sock hat, or something very similar, every year. He's cold-natured, and these hats are his first line of defense. This year, I decided to make one for him by hand, since this is the first year I've had the skill to do something like that.

 I decided to use the Back Loop Beanie pattern by Ryan Hollists, which is available as a free download on Ravelry. I couldn't seem to get the ribbing at the bottom to work right for me (actually, this was a hilariously awful failure so bad that I wish I'd taken a picture of it), so I decided to stick with extra rows of the basic stitch pattern. I used Hobby Lobby I Love This Yarn! in Navy, although this picture isn't terribly true to the color.

I also made a couple of sizing changes:

Add row 11: [Sc in next 11 sts, 2 sc in next st] repeat around (six times)
Row 12 - 40: Sc around

When he tried it on, I thought it wouldn't have hurt to have done another increase row or two. I intended it to be long, which it was, so that part worked out fine. On the whole, it's a basic hat, but it worked up nicely and seemed to please the recipient.