I have been drooling over this one particular hat online for at least a year now. But since I live in Estonia and shipping anything here seems to be a bit pricey, I’ve never bought it. I think it is so adorable though. I am always cold and since it seems about three-fourths of our year feels like winter having a hat that you love seems completely reasonable. At least to me, it seems completely reasonable.
The hat I am in love with.
I’ve texted a picture of it to my husband at least once…kinda hoping that the not-so-subtle hint would hit him, that I really needed the hat. This was over a year ago. It didn’t work. I doubt he even remembers it.
Last winter it occurred to me that since I love to crochet and dabble in knitting occasionally, I should just try making it myself. I made a hat, alright, but it really doesn’t look much like my “beloved hat”. It is what I have worn though, for the past winter.
The hat I made. Cici was only too happy to wear it for me to snap a quick picture.
Around this Christmas time when we started talking about gifts for the kids that my husband, Adam, asked me what did I want….it set me off on thinking what would I want if I could get something? We keep things pretty simple around here, so new things are not frequent happenings. I remembered my “beloved hat” and showed it to him again. But this time in my searching I found that the lady sells a pattern to it. It’s a knitting pattern, but I thought why not? Just because I’m not, particularly, a great knitter shouldn’t stop me from trying.
He didn’t seem that impressed with my find. But that usually means he’ll find something ten times as cool as I ever did to begin with. He’s pretty awesome like that.
Oh well. I could always try my hand at making my own again this year. If I try long enough, maybe, eventually, I will stumble onto something that resembles my hat. I decided to attempt for Willow. It turned out a little too big for her, so it turned into a present for Cici.
Getting closer and I even knitted this one.
Then on Christmas morning as we were opening our presents he pulls out something from under the tree and smiles real big. He wanted me to open this one right away! He had gotten me my pattern and had it all printed off and ready for me. I was so happy. What a fun surprise!
The super awesome hat pattern.
He got me several balls of yarn too. I love the colors. He always finds me the coolest and prettiest yarns. That is true love! He knows me well.
Look at this pretty yarn. I love the colors.
There is a little yarn store here in town that has the neatest selection of yarns that I love taking my girls to. We can always find something good and she has nice prices too. I’ve found that one of the blessings of living in Estonia is that we can find yarn in almost any grocery store too. It’s right up there with bread and milk, right? And if you happen to need a new crochet hook or knitting needle…they are there too in the grocery store, even in our small town store. Maybe all grocery stores have this feature. I don’t know.
Right away, I started on my new hat. I didn’t exactly have the right size of knitting needles, but I didn’t think that would be too big of a deal….I just added a few extra stitches to accommodate the size difference. That should work, right? I had to look up all those pesky abbreviations for knitting since I don’t know hardly a one of them.
My pattern was thoroughly marked up and I had barely begun. It was exciting. I worked on it for a couple of days and finally got it finished. It was a thing of beauty. It was perfect. Sort of. It just happened to also be way to big. I think it might fit a lady Goliath, but certainly not me. Talk about bummed.
Back to those stitches I added and the wrong sized needles….apparently, all those details really matter in knitting. Oops. I know they say to do a little swatch and count your stitches per inch and all that stuff, but it all seems so pointless and mindless to make a patch that makes nothing, but something to count. I can’t ever bring myself to do it. Maybe I should.
I don’t think making an entire hat that can’t be worn is entirely useful either. So maybe I should just count my losses next time and make the crazy stitch counting patch. I doubt I will though.
I’ve been thinking that there has to be a math formula to account for this. I just can’t seem to figure it out. I’m working with Jaz in Algebra right now so it has me thinking there has to be a way to figure this out without actually knitting or crocheting up a little piece.
Yarn comes in balls measured in length and weight. It seems that if the pattern calls for a 100gram ball, 116 meters long and what I have is a 100 gram ball, 210 meters long and the pattern says to cast on 68 stitches onto a 6mm knitting needle and I only have a 4mm knitting needle that there has to be a mathematical formula out there somewhere that says…cast on “x” amount of stitches on your 4 mm needle.
I’m pretty sure of it. I attempted a couple things. Nothing worked. I’m not a mathematical genius so maybe the answer is really simple and staring me in the face and I’m just missing it. If someone could solve this, I’m sure they would have my undying love forever. Maybe other people really like stitching up tiny squares to measure inches and stitches and calculate accordingly. I certainly do not.
So that hat….I hated to lose a whole ball of yarn over something that will not fit anybod I know. It’s pretty sad to make something that won’t fit anybody at all. Heads just don’t come that big. I couldn’t even give it away! So I redeemed my ball my taking out every last one of my precious stitches. My kids couldn’t believe I would undo all that work. I guess, it was a good lesson for the whole family. Math matters. Or follow your pattern to a “T”, or “eat your vegetables”…I guess you could take from it what you want. Though I hardly doubt they thought that much beyond, “mom is crazy”.
Now, I am on round two and this time I am going back to crochet. I know crochet. I love crochet. My crochet hooks are my friends. I haven’t named them yet, but I might one day. I have taken the pattern and am doing pretty much the same thing, just in a crochet stitch. It’s looking pretty good so far.
I have high hopes for it actually turning out well. I have learned a lot from my pattern and still love it. And once I get the right sized knitting needles, I’m going to do it again. Because having more than one hat that you love, is okay too. I have total respect though for the prices some people have on Etsy for their hand made hats and such. I’ve decided that if you make something by hand you can charge what you want for it. Not that anyone out there has been begging me for my opinion to begin with. But there you have it!
If you want to know more about the crochet basics click here.