Monday, March 31, 2014

Turkey Head

Thanksgiving was months ago, but I am always Thankful for my little Lucky!  At the time of Thanksgiving, he was just 7 weeks old, and now he is almost 6 months!  Wow has time flown by.  Long before I was pregnant, I did a lot of research into costume baby hats, and knew that I would want to make a bunch for my child.  Lucky had been wearing a pumpkin hat since birth (appropriate for an October baby!) and I knew that I wanted to create something special for his first Thanksgiving.  I knew that I had found a winner in the Jive Turkey Baby Hat. 
Seriously I am melting.  I cannot believe how tiny he was!  I think he was 5 weeks old in this picture. 
Cast on while snuggling my (exactly) 1 month old baby boy.  Boy does "Lucky's" mama feel lucky!


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).