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.

Happy New Year!

I've been so busy crafting Christmas gifts that I've had to take a pretty long hiatus from posting. Now I'm back, and I have a big stash of holiday craft photos to post over the next few weeks! I'll start with the elf hat that I made for my brand new niece, who was born a little ahead of schedule on November 20.

I made this hat using I Love This Cotton! in Bright Green and White Sparkle. The pattern is the Newborn Elf Hat with Braided Tassel pattern by Sarah McPherson (this is a link to Ravelry; the pattern has been taken down since I used it). I should note that I changed the tassel and that I did something drastically wrong while changing colors. There's a reason this picture only shows the back of the hat. It also turned out to be a little too small, so overall, not my most successful project.

On the other hand, I have quite a few that turned out much better including a lot more crochet, some body products,

and, something new I tried this year, candles.

I hope everyone's enjoying 2013 so far!

His Birthday It Is

Some good friends' son turned one recently, so I wanted to make him something to mark the occasion. Since his parents and I share a love for sci-fi and fantasy, I decided to make him the same Yoda Baby Hat that I made for my nephew some time back. I used the same pattern and materials that I used for the one for my nephew to create this one.

While the young recipient of the hat was a little reluctant to keep it on (it was a pretty warm day to be wearing a crocheted hat), his mom told me that she saw a few adults cast an admiring glance its way.

Roller Derby Babies Pattern

I created these hats for a friend who plays roller derby. One of her teammates was expecting twin girls, and she wanted a gift to get these new derby girls off to the right start.

For those unfamiliar with roller derby, these designs are the helmet covers worn by the jammer and the pivot, two critical positions on the team. In real life, they look something like this:

Image from Molly's Skivvies, purveyor of derby goods

To make my hats, I looked for a basic baby hat pattern to give me roughly the right proportions. I decided on Bev's Newborn Roundie by Beverly A. Qualheim because it's simple and the instructions are easy to understand.

From there, I made quite a few modifications, so here is my final pattern:

Materials
Approximately 50 yards worsted weight yarn for hat. I used Caron Simply in Soft in White.
Approximately 15 yards worsted weight yarn for embellishments. I used Red Heart Shimmer in Red.
G Hook
One safety pin style stitch marker
Yarn Needle

Round 1: Create a magic circle. Ch 3 (counts as 1 dc), 14 dc into loop (15 sts)
Starting with round 2, mark the first stitch of each round with a stitch marker, moving the marker up as you work.
Round 2: 2 dc into top of ch 3 from previous round, [dc into next st, 2 dc into next st] around (23 sts).
Round 3: Repeat round 2 (35 sts).
Round 4 - 9: [2 dc, dc] around. (This leads to an increase of one stitch per round. Round 9 = 41 sts).
Round 10: Dc around (41).
Round 11: [Sc into next 5 sts, sc 2 tog] five times, 6 sc. Slip stitch into first stitch in the round, finish off (36).

For the pivot hat stripe embellishment:
Ch 13.
Row 1: Dc in 4th ch from hook, dc across. Ch 3 and turn.
Row 2 - 21:  Dc across, ch and turn.
Pin the stripe down the center of the hat to find the correct placement. Stitch the stripe on using the stripe color and a yarn needle.

For the jammer hat star embellishment:
This star is based on the Simple Little Star pattern by Melissa Trenado, with just a slight modification.
Make 2.
Round 1: Ch 2. 5 sc in 2nd ch from hook.
Round 2: 2 sc in each st around.
Round 3: [Sc, ch 5, sc in 2nd ch from hook, hdc, dc in next 2 ch. Skip next sc from round 2. Sc into next sc from round 2.] five times to create five points.*
Round 4: [4 sc up first side of point, 3 sc in top stitch, 4 sc down remaining side] five times. Sl st into first sc. Fasten off.
Pin one star to opposite sides of the hat to find the correct placement. Stitch the stars on using the star color and a yarn needle.

*I initially found this row a little confusing. To add a little clarity, you are working the point of each star over three stitches of row 2. First, you do a sc, then ch 5. This chain becomes a base over which you work 1 flat row that forms a triangle due to increasing the height of the stitches. Finally, you attach your new triangle back to round 2 by skipping the 2nd sc and doing a sc into the 3rd sc from round 2. I'm sure this is still pretty confusing, but it makes sense once you do the first one!

Summer Hippy Hat

Since I started crocheting, I've seen lots of patterns for really cute slouchy hats. I decided to try making one for summer in a light, breathable yarn with a very open pattern of stitches to keep it from being hot.

I decided to use the Spider Web Slouchy Hat pattern from A Little Loopy, But I'm Hooked, which also has tons of other nice crochet patterns.

I used I Love This Cotton! in Purple to make it nice and light. The band around my face turned out a little looser than would have fit me perfectly, but it stays in place okay for just hanging out. Adding a little barrette or two somewhere makes it secure enough for getting out and doing stuff.

The instructions were easy to follow and the hat worked up quickly. As it turns out, I'm not crazy about how it looks with my hair tucked inside, which is how I was hoping to wear it. I actually don't wear hats all that often, so I'm still sort of trying to decide how it fits in my wardrobe. I always seem to have that problem with hats.

Do you have anything like that? Things that just seem to always end up cooler in concept than in practice?

Poke-Mon Hat

When I started crocheting, I was (pleasantly) surprised to find out how many Pokemon crochet patterns there are out there! My brother Andy first got me into Pokemon through the trading card game, which led me to the cartoons, then the Nintendo DS games, then the old GameBoy games...and on and on. So, after making his son an Oshawott and a Yoda hat, I decided it was time to make Andy something.

I made this Pokeball hat using this free pattern by Bonnie Jacobs. Andy said the visible crochet stitches made it look sort of Rasta, so we dubbed it the Poke-Mon hat. I used I Love This Yarn! from Hobby Lobby in Red, White, and Black. You can also find this project on Ravelry if you'd like more information.

So, I will leave you with a picture of the recipient of this project wearing his hat!

I think I'll need to make hats for his family of three (and one impending) by this winter!

Hat for Nephew It Is

Since I started crocheting, I've actually had to restrain myself from making a zillion nerd and/or cute animal themed baby hats for my nephew who just turned one. I did have to make one though. I mean really, I only have so much self-control.

I made this hat using Caron Simply Soft in Pistachio and a size H (5.0 mm) hook. The pattern is the Yoda Baby Hat from the Happy Hooker blog. I did make one small alteration to the pattern in that I did a whip stitch around the outside edges of the ears, then pulled it tight to give them a little curl.

Overall, I'm really pleased with my very first crocheted hat, though I haven't quite mastered the trick of fastening off things worked in the round and leaving a perfectly smooth edge.