So, while I was in Houston for a tradeshow before our vacation I made both my mom and I hats. Naturally it turned out that hats were unnecessary since it was warm and sunny the entire time we were there.
The tradeshow was 4 days, after which we would be flying out of Houston for Albuquerque. I needed a pattern that was fairly simple and used few colors. I decided to try the free pattern by Moogly called the All Grown Up Striped Slouch hat. I hat clipped it into my Evernote crochet notebook a long time ago but had not yet needed to make one.
So, the first day I managed to find a Michaels near the place we went for dinner and went and picked two colors of yarn, a blue and a gray like the pattern called for. Love those colors anyway.
This pattern was fast. Once you understand the two rows directions it was easy to get into a groove and not need to directly reference the pattern. I love ones like that.
I love the little tiny stripe that is created by using the back post. Really makes it look detailed. It also gives the hat great texture and makes it feel thick and warm. But the really best part is that since there are only two rows between the color switching you carry the yarn along and never cut the colors. That makes it so fast and eliminates a lot of cutting and attaching.
The ribbing at the bottom threw me for a little bit of a loop. I got all the way to the end and realized that I had made a mistake since instead of being a brim, I had made a flared skirt. What I had done was instead of skipping I made the up and down ribbing on every stitch, essentially doubling the amount of rows on the brim. So I of course had to rip out the entire brim and start again, but it was much faster the second time around. Duh.
Here I should also mention, that since I wanted my brim to be in the blue color, I added an extra row of the gray to make it a bit longer and slouchier and still allow me to read the pattern right.
Looks really cute on. Not sure if it is because the original image is taken on a mannequin head with no hair but it was not quite as slouchy as I had thought it would be, even with my extra row. I made the small adult size.
You can tell mine looks a little longer than the one in their picture, due to that extra row. I have since added a little felt pin right above the brim of a little bird and it looks super cute. Total time I would say was about 7 hours for this pattern, but would be less if you didn't add the extra row, and make the brim mistake. I can easily see this in a lot of other colors, so give it a go!
PS: I only bought one skein of each color, and had enough left of each to make my mom a cupcake hat out of the remainders. Check the cupcake hat post to see a picture of that blue and gray cupcake hat.
