FO: Last Minute Rainbow Beanies

What's a knitter to do when they finish all their Christmas gift knitting on time? Why... stress themselves out by starting a new project 2 days before Christmas of course! lol On December 21st, I took my kids to a local thrift store to pick out a present for each other (this worked great, by the way, because they had the fun of looking through everything and it also counted as a gift - win win), when I came across a bag with 2 skeins of this yarn along with coordinating eyelash yarn for just $2.00. Normally I would never go for this type of yarn because it just sits in my stash, but since I had finished everything else I wanted to make for the holiday, I figured I had enough time to whip out 2 bulky weight hats.

The yarn is Yarn Bee Soft Illusion and this is the LA Cool colorway. They were different dye lots, which you can tell in the finished hats, but my kids actually don't seem to notice the difference because I have yet to hear them yell, "that's MY hat!" which is great. I was able to knit up one hat each evening on the 22nd and 23rd, so I got them done without my kids seeing them. This yarn is so squishy soft. The base yarn is buttery smooth already, but then the hairy bits are even softer. 

On the 24th, I made the pom poms. I broke out my pom pom makers and made the largest size I had and I think they are a great size for 5 year olds. Making these was such a mess! Pom poms are a mess in general, but add in some eyelash yarn and woo boy. I tried to do all my cutting over a bag just to catch the inevitable threads and after that I was kind of buffing the pom pom with my hand to try and shake off the excess. I still find neon green threads around my house as my kids wear these. Anyway, this yarn is Premier Yarns Lash Lux Sequins in the Neon Green colorway, which is the perfect highlighter green and goes great with the crazy yarn from the hat. My kids watched me make the pom poms and got to help shake off the excess, but they didn't know what they were for.

I always try to make them something that they know is a present from me and not from Santa each year. I wrap these and set them near the Santa presents (our Santa does not wrap - it's liberating, you should try it) and they tore right into it this year and loved them. We don't really get much wear out of hats here in Central Florida, but they still love wearing them. I made them some Sesame Street Hats 2 years ago and they still wear those to play pretty often, so I knew these fuzzy hats would be a hit. I have 1/4 skein left of this hairy yarn all together, which will probably languish in my stash for ages, lol. But I'm glad I found this yarn just in the nick of time to make this gift. Sometimes it's fun to just make a completely ridiculous hat for your kids, you know?

And that completes my gift knitting from 2023! I have two other project that is technically a Christmas gift but I didn't make it until January and that was known and agreed upon with the recipients (It was their fault as much as mine, lol). All in all, I'm very happy with everything I managed to make this year. I'm glad that the kids were so happy with their gifts and that their quality was so nice. I guess knitting for almost 12 years has paid off. 

Summary:

Yarn: 1.75 skeins of Yarn Bee Soft Illusion in the LA Cool colorway and 0.50 skeins of Premier Yarns Lash Lux Sequins in Neon Green - $2.00

Pattern: LA Cool Hat by Leenbacon on Ravelry - Free

Notions: Thread

Time: 2 hours

FO: Mattock Hat by Home Row Fiber Co

I knitted another hat - and this time it's for ME! lol

This is the just released Mattock Hat by Rochelle of Home Row Fiber Co. (the sewing community also knows her as Lucky Lucille). Rochelle released the Mattock Cowl back in March and she designed this hat to match. When she put an open call for testers on her Instagram, I decided to throw my name in the ring and she picked me :) I was pretty stoked, lol.

The Mattock Hat is a slouchy style beanie with a simple repeating texture pattern all the way around. The pattern only has 2 lines that repeat over and over, making this a really simple project that is easy to memorize. I knitted a gauge swatch before starting, but once that dried and showed it was spot on I got right to work!

The pattern lines up beautifully at the top, making for a neat and orderly center. I just love hats that do this, lol, it's the simple things, folks. I knitted my hat using a 24" circular needle, but you could easily use DPNs or a shorter circular needle (Rochelle recommends a 16"). I knitted my hat with the recommended size 7 needle and I love the gauge. It's tight enough to notice the textures, but it's loose enough to give a drapey fit and still breathe a bit. Normally my head overheats quickly with hats, but this one can stay on my head for quite a while with no built up heat.

I knitted my Mattock hat in Harvest by Feza Yarns, a worsted weight 100% merino wool that is dyed organically. I used the Citrus colorway and it's a bright lemon yellow that has just the slightest variation in the color (which I love). I won this yarn in  Facebook giveaway from Stitch Diva Studios last February, so I'm glad I have such a fun project from it. The yarn is wonderfully soft and was a pleasure to knit with. One little snag was at the very beginning of this project - when I went to wind this hank of yarn into a skein, I couldn't find the end of the yarn! I twisted, I separated, I did everything I could think of, but I was finally so frustrated with searching that I just cut a spot and started to pull from there. This was a nightmare that lead to me having to wind a ball by hand for about an hour because the hank kept knotting as I pulled, so I would have to untangle it on the swift. When I finished, I discovered why I found no end - there wasn't one! It's still the craziest thing, but when I cut my own place to start winding I fully expected to come across the actual factory ends of the yarn and need to join it back, but nope! No end. At All. So crazy. I'm glad the yarn was fun to work with because I was really not happy with it at first, lol.

Since this was a pattern test, I made sure to make it up just as written. I'll confess I was slightly skeptical about it being only one size since I have a "larger than average" head. Generally I can't buy hats in a store, and I have to make the largest size of knitted hats. This had a standard finished size of 19" around and my head is 23" around, so I was worried it wouldn't give the slouchy effect. I am very pleased I was wrong! The hat has just the right amount of casual slouch and it's super comfortable. I didn't even stretch it out in blocking - I did my usual blocking on a balloon to keep the round shape and I made sure the balloon was 19" around - but Rochelle includes great blocking instructions in the pattern so even a beginner could easily get a lovely result. The garter stitch brim is naturally quite stretchy, plus the body of the hat itself is basically a fancy ribbing, so all those knits and purls make this hat have a lot of "give", making even my large noggin fit it comfortably :)

All in all I'm thrilled with my new hat :) It's a fun design that is quick to make up and is comfy to wear - it's a triple threat! I love my new yellow hat, and I'm glad I get to share it now that the pattern is released. If you'd like to make your own Mattock Hat, head over to Ravelry and snap up the pattern for yourself! This would be a great pattern for making gifts, and I can personally vouch that it is a very detailed and well written pattern :) Thanks so much, Rochelle, for letting me test your pattern! Now I just need to make myself a Mattock Cowl to match, lol.

*I was given the Mattock Hat pattern for free to test the pattern with no obligation to blog about it. All opinions are 100% my own. I just really like this pattern :)

FO: Slouchy Moss Beanie

And now we have the final hat from Marisa's triumvirate :) This one was the wild card. She had picked a different pattern - Bothel by Tracey Todhunter - but when I went to make it I discovered that it was just a plain double crochet stitch hat. The pictures look very different, so I'm not really sure what's up there, but I just wasn't happy with the pattern. So when both the other hats were finished we had another little consultation and she picked this one.

This is the Slouch Moss Beanie by Phanessa Fong, another free pattern on Ravelry. It's a slouchy beanie knit in a moss stitch at a very loose gauge, giving it a nice texture. It also made it super stretchy, which is pretty fun and more comfy I think.

This is also made in Cascade 220 Superwash yarn, this time in the smoke gray colorway, I really like this color - a nice blue but not in your face. This yarn really worked fantastic for this style of hat - man I love 220 superwash :)

I really love this texture. I've never been a fan of knitting moss or seed stitch because I'm an English style knitter, so it's pretty tedious to change your yarn from front to back after every single stitch. Thankfully this was a small project, and while I did get a bit tired of all that moving toward the end I can't deny that it is a lovely outcome :)

Both of us agreed that this hat needed a little somethin extra, so I showed marisa the other colors of 220 superwash I have in my stash so she could pick a pom pom. In the end she settled on white. I made a 3.5" pom pom and holy cow does that take a lot of yarn! It took 11 grams just for this pom pom. Crazy. But it is a cute result.

And here's the hat's new owner, lol. Are you tired of seeing that same hill yet? This is a nice color for winter - it goes with the landscape but still stands out with its touch of more color.

So there you have it - my 3 hats that I made while I had the flu. In the end I'm really grateful I had these projects already lined up and ready to make. I don't know I could've handled a lot of decision making with my head in a fog, and the knitting really kept me from being completely miserable. So thanks, Marisa, for wanting so many hats, lol :)

FO: Cabled Beanie with Fur

The next hat in line that I sent to my sister actually turned out to be the overall favorite. 

This is the Basic Cabled Cap pattern by Judy Gibson, which is a free pattern on Ravelry. I liked that it's simple and only the same cable stitch over and over again, lol. Nice and easy. This one started out with a photo from my sister from a movie or tv show - after showing her all the photos of hat patterns I could make, I think it really got her into noticing knit wear. She sent the photo and I turned to Ravelry to find a pattern, and she liked the look of this one. Yay for a simple hat! 

The yarn is Cascade 220 Superwash in the Turtle colorway. Something Marisa really liked about the inspiration hat photo was the big furry pom pom on top. Rather than pay who knows what at a craft store for a cheap one, I turned to ebay and searched their Chinese sellers. We settled on this one that sells as a faux fur brown fox pom pom. The only down side of buying things this way is the time it takes to arrive, so 3 weeks later when it showed up at my door I was a little surprised by what we got. This is real rabbit fur. This turned into one of those weird situations - neither my sister nor I would've deliberately bought a real fur pom pom, but now that  that's what it turned out to be, what can you really do? So while we both love bunnies, I used the pom pom and I have to say it looks really cute on this hat. This bunny lost its life already, and then came from China for only $4 so there really wasn't much I could do about it. Don't hate me, lol.

I love the simple cable in this hat. It's just one cable stitch every 4 rows so it was very easy to memorize. This simplicity came in really handy when I had the flu. After finishing Bronntanas, I just picked up the next yarn and set to work, so my fuzzy brain was grateful for the mindlessness of this project.

Being a real fur pom pom, you don't really want to worry about washing it. I doubt the hat will need washing all that often, but in case it does we are in luck since the pom pom comes already sewn onto a snap button. You just sew the receiving end to your hat and you're done :) So if she gets it all dirty she can just pop off the pom pom and throw it in the washer. Yay for simplicity all around!

And here is Marisa posing with one of her cats :)

And here is the hat on her tubing trip.

All in all I love how this hat turned out. It was easy to make and super comfy to wear. I definitely recommend this pattern if you're needing a quick and easy project :)

FO: Bronntanas

As I said in my last post, my sister asked if I could make her a few more hats to combat the West Virginia winter. After agreeing, that project turned into 3 hats, lol. Marisa bought the yarn (during one of Craftsy's awesome supply sales) and I did the work. These 3 hats worked out to be very well timed since I got "Flu B" and basically couldn't do much of anything for over a week. This was at the end of January and these 3 hats gave me projects that were relatively simple for my flu-filled-brain to handle and I never had to be bored while hanging out on the couch :) 

To decide on patterns for hats, she gave me a general idea of what she wanted and I sent her pictures from my Ravelry library to pick from. The first design she settled on was Bronntanas by Ysolda Teague. It's a lovely cabled beanie with slouch that I've always liked, plus I've never actually made up any of Ysolda's patterns before, so this was a nice opportunity to give her a a try. 

This design has an all over cable design that comes out a kind of honey comb style. Now, the eagle eyed among you will notice that my hat seems more like stripes of cables ... and you would not be wrong, lol. I seriously had to restart this hat 3 times because I didn't pay close enough attention to the pattern, and it wasn't until I was halfway through the second cable stripe that I realized why it wasn't looking right - The cable chart has 19 rows and after the first go through of the 19 rows you are supposed to go back to row 9 and work through it again ... and I just kept going 1-19 with 4 rows stockinette in between. Whoop! I was more than halfway finished with the hat at that point, and after being so sick and frustrated with my own oversights 3 other times I was not about to redo the entire hat again. I knew Marisa wouldn't notice the difference since the main pattern is the same and that it would still look good - it's just not exactly like the pattern sample. So I just kept going! This did mean that I had to keep trying it on for length to make sure I got the required slouch.

After a thorough explanation of yarn and fiber content and heat retention and wash-ability, my sister decided she wanted these hats made of superwash wool. When Craftsy had Cascade 220 Superwash on sale for $8.50 per skein, I knew it was what we needed. I love using this yarn - it's such a work horse and always turns out nicely. Marisa decided for this particular hat to be made with the charcoal colorway and I like how it turned out. I did make sure to block the hat just to get the cables to lay nicely, and I decided to finally try blocking the hat on a balloon which worked wonderfully. It was pretty funny to keep blowing up and deflating the balloon with a tape measure around it until it was the right size, lol. Worth the effort though.

I really like the garter stitch brim on this hat and that it's looser around the face. I also really like the slight slouch it has going on. Just a casual hat with a cute pattern all over. What's not to love? Even though I didn't make it just like the pattern, I can definitely say (well, reluctantly admit is more like, lol) that my mistakes were my own fault for not reading through the pattern better. I would definitely recommend this for a cute but not difficult design.

And here is the hat in action on Marisa's  tubing trip somewhere in West Virginia. She's happy, I'm happy, and I'm no longer sick, lol. All good things. Yay for cute cabled hats!

Christmas FO: Slouchy Beanie

So I know I said back in January that I'd shared all my handmade Christmas gifts, but I kind of lied, lol. I shared all the ones I had photos of, but there were still 2 projects left - one that will be blogged soon, and this hat.

My sister, Marisa, specifically requested a hat this year. More than just that she sent me an actual pattern through Pinterest that she wanted me to make her, lol. Lucky for me it was basically the easiest crocheted hat ever. This is the Really Easy Slouchy Beanie pattern by Jennifer DiMaria. It's a free pattern, so that was an even nicer bonus. The whole hat is just double crochet with a single crochet brim. You increase out to the width you want, crochet straight, then decrease slightly and sc a few rows for a brim. That's it! So easy. This made it really easy to give my sister exactly what she wanted. Woo hoo!

Marisa requested either a black or dark red hat, so I went with Caron Simply Soft in the Autumn Red colorway. I figured the yarn would have a nice drape in this style. Being me I couldn't just follow the pattern when I disagreed with it, lol. So in the end this hat is different from the written pattern, but it still turned out slouchy. I just didn't think it was going to have enough slouch, so I added both width and length to it. We have large heads in my family (it's all the brains), so I just kept trying the hat on and adjusting to my preference. Didn't take notes though, sorry. It took about the course of one movie to make this hat, and Marisa was happy with the result :) So happy that she requested I make her more hats for the West Virginia winter (which you will see more of coming up).

And here it is on Marisa herself :) She recently went on a tubing trip and took pics of all her new hats for me. We'll have to have a chat about how to pull that slouch to the nape of the neck, lol, but other than that it looks pretty good if I do say so myself. I love the pop of color in the drab winter landscape. So I'm glad that I could give my sister just what she wanted for Christmas and have it be practical for keeping her warm too. Yay for people to make hats for!

Christmas FO: The Bro-In-Law Hat, 2016 Edition

Now that my year end wrap ups are posted and the holidays are over, I guess I should get cracking on the Christmas gifts I made. I've been making most of my Christmas gifts for the past few years - it helps with the expense of the holidays plus I feel like it's a gift that took a little more time and effort so it means a bit more. At least I hope so :) Each year I'm always at a loss of what to make for my brothers-in-law. Two of them don't live here, so I don't really know what they like to do and use on a daily basis. I started making hats for them a while ago, and that trend seems to have stuck on :) Last year I decided to make them the same pattern which worked out great (they live in different states, so there's no risk of them both wearing the same hat together, lol), so I went with the same idea this year just asking my sisters (their respective wives) what color they would like. And here they are:

This year I went with the Instant Love hat by Taiga Hilliard Designs, which is a free pattern that uses super bulky weight yarn. Perfect! I picked it because I like the knit rows that feed down into the ribbing, making it just a bit different then a plain old beanie.

This blue on was for Eric. When Marisa told me he would like medium to deep blue, I knew this Lion Brand Hometown USA in the Lake Tahoe colorway would be perfect. It was from my stash - yay stash busting! - so it was just a matter of casting on and getting to work. Being that this hat uses such big yarn, I was finished in about 3 hours. Woo hoo :) Personally I love this yarn - I love it's little flecks of colors like green and yellow. Subtle, but neat. And it's big and squishy. Hopefully that equates to also keeping Eric's head warm this winter.

The second version took a bit more planning. Shannon said that her husband, Justin, would want a black hat, which is all fine except that I didn't have enough black left in my stash in this weight. I didn't want to use thinner yarn because it would take longer to make and I really needed to get this one done quickly to get it in the mail in time for Christmas. I didn't have any time to go to a bigger craft store, so I was stuck with the selection at my local Michael's. I went to the store not knowing what they would have, but hoping I didn't have to go with their store brand which I have found to be rough and unpleasant to knit with. Thankfully they carried Lion Brand Wool-Ease Thick and Quick and it was one sale plus there was a coupon off your whole purchase that weekend, lol. Score!

This hat turned out even squishier then the first one - I'm really surprised at how much I like this yarn! It did shed quite a bit (which made for a confusing experience when I looked down at my green skirt and found it covered in a dusting of dark hairs - I thought it was cat hair for about an hour before I realized it was the yarn), but that will stop after the first washing. And this is washable! I'm always torn as to whether I should make gifts in fancy yarn that would require extra washing precautions or just use acrylic so they can wash it in the machine and not ruin it. I generally stick with acrylic for guys, and my sisters I just make sure to give them explicit instructions if their yarn has wool in it. Hopefully they listen :)

So, those were this year's Bro-in-Law hats, and they turned out quite nicely if I do say so myself. I hope Eric and Justin liked them and that they keep their heads toasty warm this winter!

Up next will be more of the gifts I made this year, so check back!

Christmas FO: Ginger Bearded Beanie

My brother and i Have a sort of un-official Christmas tradition that I make him some type of ridiculous hat. I always ask him what he would like, and he always says a hat, and occasionally he has specific requests. This year he first told me he wanted a plain beanie in purple (his school color). After that was made, he requested another beard like his previous gift so that he could interchange different colors and "accessorize", lol. 

I knit the beanie with my standby pattern, basic hat by Ooo Baby Knits (a free pattern). I made it the largest size and it fits him great. Before the beard request, I was trying to fancy it up by duplicate stitching a gray letter V (his team is called the Vipers), but it just wasn't coming out well. I'm one who really needs a chart for any type of color work and I was just winging it. When the beard was added to the order, I happily took out the V, lol.

So, here's just the hat by itself :) I used Hobby Lobby's I Love This Yarn in Grape from my stash and it's so wonderfully soft. The color worked out perfectly too - he can wear it with his basketball jersey if he wants.

The beard is crocheted and I used another free pattern - Bobble Bearded Beanie by Ashlee Prisbee. This is the same pattern I used last time and it worked out great. I made the largest size and used Vanna's Choice yarn in Terra Cotta from my stash for it. This is one of those odd colors that I tend to use all the time. You wouldn't think you'd need that much bright orange yarn, but I've gone through many skeins now so I try to keep it in my stash all the time. To make the hat and beard connect, I added buttons (2 on each side) so the beard can button on and off.

So now Briggs can truly accessorize his previous green hat and brown beard by swapping them out :) His hat was quite the hit on Christmas day, and everyone had to try it on. We had a lot of fun. Merry Christmas, Briggs! I hope it keeps your head and face warm :)

FO Friday: Another Pumpkin Hat

After my first pumpkin hat came out so cute, I knew my nephew needed on too :) I actually started this project back in August, but I set it aside to finish some more pressing projects ... and just realized that it would be obsolete in a week if I didn't buckle down and get it done. Whoops! So, I've been working on it in my spare minutes this week (including at the DMV, lol). So, here is my new, slightly larger pumpkin baby hat!

I used the exact same yarn from the first hat (in fact it is the leftover yarn), Wool-Ease in Pumpkin and Avocado. This hat did take more yarn since the first was the newborn size and this is the 1-2 year old size, but I still have about 1/4 of a skein left of the orange :) 

The only thing I changed about this version of the hat is the stem. The pattern has you alternate between a knit row and a purl row the whole way up - I found this very hard to keep tension with while making the first hat, so it was very cumbersome. So this time around I just knitted the whole way up - done and done :)

I'm really happy with how the hat came out. The only problem - Luke HATES it, lol. He immediately pulls it off if you put it on him and if he can't get it off, he cries. You're welcome, kid. I even brought my nice camera with me to hopefully get a good picture of him wearing the hat for this post and this was as close as I got (and I had to get it with my phone).

He had just gotten a whole packet of sauce from my sister's lunch all over him, so he is wearing her "Bite Me" shirt lol. All the following pictures are of him crying/ripping it off and throwing it on the floor, lol. He does, however, think it's awesome and hilarious when other people wear his hat:

So at least we all had fun with my creation :) Hopefully I can slip it on him in his sleep or something for a cute picture, lol. Oh well, at least it's finished and I can focus on other projects now. Maybe my future children will be better with wearing hats!