Couple-a-Hats

Made a quick pair of hats for a friend. She wanted a bit of a silly hat, with cat ears, and then again a normal hat for more every day wear. She gave me the colors she wanted and the requirement that they had to cover the ears.

First up, a Gray Hat :
Looked through my stash and found a very nice gray, that could go with gray or black winter wear. Got a dusty pink to give it a flower embellishment. Looked around for a pattern that would be both warm and pretty. Decided to give this pattern for a Shell Stitch Beanie by Elise Engh of Grow Creative a try. I really like the look of it, and since the shell was only used on a few rows and not the whole thing, I figured it would still be pretty warm, while looking nice.

I used a Red Heart soft yarn in gray and a 5.00 mm hook. It took me about 1.5 hours to make the hat itself and another 30 min to make the flower in the pink color to contrast. I tried it on me and only made one small change, which was to add a row 16 to the brim of dc around to make sure it covered the ears as requested.

Gray/Pink Hat done!

Difficulty: Easy
Time to compete: 2 hours

Second is the Cat Ear Hat :
Purple is her favorite color, so it was the go-to color for the sillier hat. I pulled out Bernat Satin in dark purple for the beanie and ears, and a light purple of the same yarn to do the inside of the ears with.

I started with a classic half double crochet hat, and used the Adult size small pattern from Oombawka Designs. I had maybe 3/4ths of the skein of dark purple, having used some of it for flowers in a scarf before, so I needed to keep it simple so I would have enough. I got maybe 15 rows (and 3 hours) in and realized that this hat was super large on me... this being for a petite person, I knew it would not fit. I ripped it out and started again.

This time I tried the Cat Hat pattern by Ramen Needles. I followed her hat pattern to the letter until row 7. I tried making as written, increasing to 72 stitches, but once again I felt it was too large on. It must be the yarn being so flexible. Anyway, on row 7 I instead did 9 sc and one increase around to give me 66 stitches. That felt much better on my head. Once it was to the top of my hear I did 6 rows of the brim front post and back post, so that it covered the entire ear. It came out pretty cute! For the ears, I still worked in the round and followed her pattern, but I switched back and forth between colors on one side to get the inside / outside look to them. Sewed em on and done!

Meow.

This hat took longer because this yarn, soft as it may be, tends to come unraveled very easily while working. That meant I needed to redo a lot of stitches as I went along if one strand got tangled or skipped or pulled through too many loops.

Difficulty: Easy
Time to complete: 6 hours

Bonus: Got a new iPhone so the pictures should be a bit nicer from here on out. Also, played with the time lapse while making the flower embellishment for the gray hat. Obviously I need a tripod and a better angle if I am going to keep doing this, but thought it might be cool. Thoughts?