Friday, December 16, 2016

A Wool Turkey Hat for Florida


When Lucky was born (October 2013), I really wanted to make him a turkey hat for his first Thanksgiving.  I quickly realized that I didn't have the yarns in my stash for the feathers, so I made a drumstick hat instead.  As Rowdy's first Thanksgiving approached, I realized that I finally had my chance to adorn him with turkey feathers!


I waffled a bit on which Wool of the Andes brown to pick for the base hat.  I actually ordered 3 different browns because I couldn't tell about the tones looking on the KnitPicks website.  (Why I didn't go upstairs and look at my color sampler is a bit beyond me, but I wanted to hit $50 for free shipping anyway and extra stash brown yarns frequently come in handy.)  Besides the brown and the teal (Spruce - 10 g, 22 yards), the rest of the yarns came from my stash.  In the end I selected the lighter brown (Chestnut, 38 g, 84 yards) and used remnants of Maroon (10 g, 22 yards), Orange (10 g, 22 yards), and Semolina (5 g, 11 yards).


Well, I need to knit a base hat since a pattern isn't provided.  What should I chose?  My snowy penguin hat is just about the right size to fit Rowdy now.  I'll that on him and then modify that as needed to fit my 9.5 month old cruiser.


While I waited for Rowdy wake up to try on the Snowy Penguin Hat to get a sense of sizing, I decided to start making the feathers.  This is the part I need to follow the pattern for anyway.  I like size 5 needles with worsted weight yarn so I was going to stick with 5's instead of the suggested 7's.  However, half way the first feather I realized that I was using my size 7's.  Whoops!  I accidentally followed the pattern instructions!  The hat fits Rowdy really well so I'm going to follow the SNOWY PENGUIN HAT pattern as the base for this turkey.  I cast on 90 stitches on size 5 needles and started knitting.  (Whoops!  I should have stuck with the 92 stitches to have it even for the ribbing. I cast on 2 more and THEN started knitting.)


Before I had finished the first feather I wasn't sure if I would want 5 or 7 feathers.  From the scale 5 won't quite fit the whole way around and if I do 7 they should all fit with a bit of overlap which might look nice.

NOTA BENE - There is an error on round 12 of the pattern.  You should K7 where it says K6.



I don't know if I'm going to knit the beak and waddle of the turkey.  I'm planning to complete the hat with just the base and feathers and see how I feel about it from there.

I really like this sunny photo but you can't see the details as well as in the next photo.  

They fit!  The pattern has you stuffing the feathers before putting them on the hat but I decided to let the flop a bit.  With some blocking I knew that they would stick up.

Maybe we need a candle hat, too!  I do need something for Rowdy's first Chanukkah...
It was really fun to keep trying this hat on Rowdy as I assembled it together.


Although he escaped me and ran off with the hat!


He was so darling that I couldn't select just one of these photos, and the hat wasn't even completely finished yet!


Right when I was finishing up the hat I realized something horrifying.  I was making my baby a WOOL turkey hat when we were planing on spending the holiday in Florida!  (We had amazing trip filled with 75+ days.)  Thankfully the temperatures indoors were moderate enough that Rowdy tolerated the hat for me to get some Turkey Day pictures.  


The hat is big enough that it should fit Rowdy a while into this winter.  I don't want to let some cheerful turkey feathers go to waste!  I'm super thankful for many things, but I am so happy that I finally got this project out of my queue and off of my needles!