I bought a single skein of Red Heart Boutique Unforgettable in Dragonfly. The teal, blue, green and purple ombre colors matched my favorite teal converse, my teal hoodie and my new purple coat. I figured that would make this hat very versatile for my go-to winter wear. One note about this yarn though, it is pretty thin for a worsted weight, and is not plied, so it felts together really fast, making starting over and ripping out the yarn a pain in the butt.
The first hat I tried had intricate cables on the outside, but I thought they got lost in the color change.
The second was a more simple beanie hat, but the scale was off and it ended up being laughably small.
So after frogging this hat twice, I decided to go with the Shell Stitch hat pattern by Elise Engh of the blog Grow Creative which can be found here: http://www.growcreativeblog.com/2012/02/shell-stitch-crochet-hat-free-pattern.html. You might recognize the hat as I made it once before in gray for a friend. She gets a lot of compliments on it, so I figured it would be nice.
For the hat I used a 5.5mm hook, which is a little larger than recommended, but this yarn felts very quickly and the larger size helped it work up. I followed her pattern up to row 6, after which I added an increase row [(Inc, 4dc) around (72)] since the diameter was not yet to 7.5 inches as would fit a normal adult head. I then did another row of 72 dc around. Then I proceeded with rows 7-8 of her original pattern to create the area of shells.
I kind of wanted this to be more of a slouchy hat so I ended up doing 12 total rows of shells before starting on the brim. I switched to sc as instructed in row 13, for one row which turned out to have 78 sc around, not quite sure how that happened. To get it a little more snug, I did a decrease row [(dec, sc 4)] which took it down to 64 stitches around. Then did four more rows of sc around to widen up the brim a bit. Bound it off, and hid the ends and it was done. I'd say once I started this actual pattern it probably only took about 4 hours to make the hat.
I still had a little less than half the skein so I figured it would be enough to make a pair of gloves. Figured they should match so I adapted the shell pattern.
Teal ombré gloves: Used 5 mm hook
R1. Foundation single crochet 30 and slip stitch to first to form a circle, be sure it doesn’t twist.
R2-10. (9 rows) 30 single crochet around for cuff.
R11. chain 2, *skip 2, 5 dc in next, skip 2, dc in next*, repeat around forming shells separated by one dc, end with dc in last and slip stitch to first.
R12. chain 2, work 2dc in same space as chain, skip 2 and work dc in center dc of 5dc shell, *skip 2 and work 5dc in single dc from last round, skip 2 and work dc in center of 5dc shell*, repeat around, ending with 2dc in first chain space to complete the first shell.
R13. chain 2, *skip 2, work 5dc in next single dc from row before, skip 2, and work dc in center of 5dc shell*, repeat around, slip stitch into first.
R14-18. Repeat rows 12-13, until you have 7 rounds of shells completed from the cuff
R19. should be a row 12 repeat: where you chain 2, work 2dc in same space as chain. Follow round 12 around but chain three at the end instead of completing the shell. That will form the thumb hole.
R20-21. Repeat row 13, then 12 again to add two more rows of shells.
R22-23. Chain 1 and sc around, join to first with slip stitch.
Bind off.
Thumb hole: In order to make it more stable and obvious, I reattached my yarn to any spot on the thumb hole and worked 12 sc around the opening. It was a little tricky and I had to go through some of the chains, but work it around and join with a slip stitch to the first. I then did a second round of 12 sc around the opening, slip stitched to the first and bound off.
Hide all your ends. Done! These gloves took maybe two hours. The hat is also pretty comfy as a beanie with the brim folded up. This is now my go-to set of winter wear.
Difficulty for both is Easy.
Time to complete: Hat: 4 hours, Gloves: Two hours each
