Tuesday, September 2, 2014

A Blue Beary Hat


When my best friends Sam and Caroline spent a year living around the world, Keith and I visited them in Chile.  This trip was an amazing adventure with my best PALS in the world, and it was also the last trip that Keith and I would take as a two person family.  (Person as in human, we always considered Indy to be part of the family.)  I got pregnant in January and little Lucky joined as the 7th PAL in October.  Now Caroline is expecting her own little boy to arrive any day now, and what would be more special than to create something for him out of yarn I picked up while visiting his mom and dad in Santiago?


This hand dyed cotton yarn Edilio Fabricacacion Chilena is not on Ravelry.  Well this makes the yarn even more unique!  I have no information about the weight or yardage, but I would consider it a super bulky yarn.  


I made a test swatch on a size I hook.  I got 6 DC's in 2 inches and I like the density of the fabric.


I chose the crochet polar bear hat pattern to create a very Blue Beary Hat.  I thought that the variation of color would still look cool with these simple little ears on top of an earflap hat.  No gauge was given with the pattern, so it makes it a little hard to decide what size to make.  The thing with babies is that their heads grow so much.  It is hard when a pattern has no gauge given so you can't tell how big to make it, but I just give it my best shot and try to compare it to hats that fit Lucky over the last few months.  

Some fun pooling as I started the hat

I am making the 3-6 month size.   At 3 months Lucky's head measured 9.5" from eartip to eartip and 16.25" around. At 6 months he was 10.25" from eartip to eartip and had just over a 17" head at the widest point.  After 8 rounds of the hat, the depth was just under 5.5" high and ~15" around.  I'm a little disappointed because I wanted it to fit a smaller baby (due in September), but I did have Lucky wearing cotton hats all winter and this cotton is really thick.  It will fit this little boy at SOME point, even if not when I intended. 


Now there are earflaps to consider.  I am always a little bad at figuring out how short to make hte hat portion when there are earflaps.  I looked through the pictures on Ravelry and decided that it looks good both if the hat is high up on the forehead or if it goes a bit further down.  I know that the baby's parents will love the hat no matter hat.  I decided to follow the instructions and complete 9 DC rounds for the base of the hat.  After the 9th round the depth is closer to 5.75-6".  I think that this is good.  

A third of the wy through round 9 I just stopped.  I replaced the DC round with a SC round so it would be a little shorter.  This brings the hight to 5.5".  I thinkt hat this plus the earflaps should fit well. (I hope.  Worst that happens is the hat is too wide for the height.  The flaps should cover the ears just fine. ) 


I left 12 sts between earflaps and chained 30 sts for the strap.  The final hat is 5.75" long and 8" wide.  


 I used 81 g of this fun yarn and I have 16 g left.  I have a fun idea to make a complimentary accessory to go along with this hat, stay tuned and I'll tell you all about it in the coming weeks.