I've been knitting a lot of hats this year.   I had very few resolutions for the year , knitting or otherwise, and this is one of the few that I've kept.  I'm only a little bit behind on my schedule for knitting certain family members birthday hats, but I don't think I'm too far off track and I've made a lot of hats to donate.  I've made a little formula of sorts that works well for my purposes: using a worsted weight acrylic yarn held with a lighter weight wool or wool blend yarn, I cast on 56 stitches, knit and purl until the hat is 5ish inches long or so, and then I begin a fairly rapid series of decreases.   The ribbing helps the hat stretch a lot for larger heads, or fit snugly on a smaller one.  Using two yarns also helps me use up remnants when I don't have enough for a full hat.  I've tried to use soft yarns, especially with some of the acrylic yarns that felt a bit stiff or scratchy to work with.  So far, I've donated hats to my church.