Seriously I am melting. I cannot believe how tiny he was! I think he was 5 weeks old in this picture. |
The hat pattern is written for a 1 year old. I want it to fit my 1.75 month old. For the pumpkin head hat, I cast on 60 sts on size 6 needles. This hat fit great at 1 month boy with a 14.5" head with room to spare. I decided to cast on 64 sts, and then start at row 3 when it was time for the decreases. This is still a multiple of 8 (important for the decrease rounds) and should fit my baby in ~3 weeks... I hope. The nice thing about a rolled brim is that the hat can easily fit a smaller or larger baby. Wahoo!!
The hat was knit with KnitPicks Wool of the Andes worsted weight yarn (Camel Heather - 36 g, 80 yards; White - 4 g, 9 yards) on size 6 double pointed needles. I wish that I had a more caramelized brown color in my stash, but I am happy to be able to create this hat out of yarns that I already have. Now of course I had to worry about yarn, I'm always worrying about yarn. I only had 37 g of the brown yarn to start, but it turned out okay in the end.
16 rows is ~2.5 inches. there are 16 rounds for the top of the hat decrease. The pumpkin hat is 6.5" long with the brim unfolded. We don't need the turkey hat to be 7.5" long.... so I will knit in stockinette for less than the 5" directed. I knit just over 4.5 inches, 30 rows. I decided to graft the top together with kitchener rather than 3 needle bind off. 12 g remain after completing the hat but before starting the legs.
I marked the stitches I wanted to pick up with yarn to line them up on each side before starting the drumsticks. I love that you pick up stitches for the drumsticks rather than make the drumsticks and then sew them on. I hate sewing things together, and this is a one piece speciality hat!
After leg 1 of the hat was competed, 7 g of the brown yarn remained. There should be just BARELY enough to complete the hat, but we'll have to see. I have a ball in my cart ready to order today if I must. (Otherwise I'd like to wait for a cyber Monday sale!)
I'm always worrying about yardage.... sigh... |
Wahoo! I had enough yarn, making this project a stash buster (rather than stash increase) after all. 1 g of brown yarn remained at the end.
Before tacking the legs down |
before tacking the legs down |
after tacking the legs to the sides |
Before tacking the drumsticks to the back of the hat, I wanted to try the hat on my baby. Of course, this meant that I needed to wait for the baby to wake up.
Before tacking (left) and after (right).