November 24, 2014

Purple Cabled Hat

So I have this lovely purple puffy vest. It is perfect for Texas winter, which tends to be chilly, but not too cold for most of the season. So a long sleeve shirt, this vest and jeans is a great go-to outfit for comfort and just enough warmth. I don't really have a hat to match it though, and I often want a hat since I have short hair.

Enter the Chunky Cabled Slouchy Beanie by AllAboutAmi. I love this blog and follow it religiously, but I have not, until now!, made anything. Wanting to change that, I thought this hat would look lovely in a purple color to match my vest.

I had a coupon for Jo-ann's and they did not carry the Loops and Threads brand, so I instead used Lion Brand Wool-Ease Thick and Quick in Eggplant. It is the same weight, a super bulky size 6, so I figured it would be just as good. After working with this same yarn in black for the Toboggan Hat I new it would be comfy!

Since I like a slouchy hat I stuck with the 10mm hook. I think my head must be larger than hers, since I ended up adding two more rows to the band (32) to make sure it wasn't too tight on me. I seamed up the band with slip stitches.

Since I did not bind off I could work straight into the hat. Working 30 dc into those 32 rows was odd. So instead of going down to 30dc, I went up to 36 dc and added another cable. I did 7 sc and then an increase around to get the 36 dc.

For the cabling, is really is very helpful if you take a look at her step by step pictures from her previous post on cabling with crochet. It is also super important to realize that in the first row where the stitches criss cross that you are doing front post TREBLE crochets... I made this hat twice and had to start over because I was doing those crossed with double crochets and it made it way too tight. Don't make my mistake! Also, even though rows 3 and 4 are written the same way, they are not performed the same way, which is majorly important to keeping the look of the cables.
Just before closing it up.
I stopped one row before she did, to make it a tiny bit lighter since I did want to add the pom. To close it up, I simply left a long tail and went in and out of the last row of the two back post stitches. That left the top looking a bit like a 6 petaled flower. Yes, there were 6 open holes there, but it was so tight, that it looked fine. Plus with the addition of the giant pom it wasn't an issue.

I have only ever made a pom out of baby yarn before and I used the fork method. With such bulky yarn I used the same tutorial, but with a cut in half paper towel roll. I do see what she means about it being a top heavy hat, but I like to wear it pulled down over my ears, and don't have too much of a problem.

DONE!
Difficulty: Intermediate, easy if you know how to front and back post crochet
Time to complete: 5 hours

Update: Here is a picture of it on me with the jacket I mentioned. You might notice I have the brim folded up, since it does stretch a lot. That helps to keep it on my head more firmly.


Update 2: Made a second one following the pattern more closely for a friend. Turned out great and was able to make in with just one skein and a tiny bit leftover from the last one.