In the woods west of Concord, Massachusetts, in the fall of 1851, Henry David Thoreau discovered an unusual fern – the only fern species in New England that twines like a vine.

One of my favorite Texas native plants

My original intention was to see how the Vanilla Beanie Beanie pattern worked up in worsted weight yarn and ended up writing it as a separate pattern. I knit the body of the hat an inch shorter than the VBB and redesigned the crown decreases. It’s considerably less slouchy.

This hat is inspired by my Vanilla Latte Sock pattern. In other words, it’s about as easy as it gets and the primary pattern stitch is a broken rib.

These are vanilla socks with just a tiny kick of caffeine like the coffee milk my grandmother treated me with when I visited her.