Christmas Hats for Cousins!

So I had a little bit of yarn leftover from my Christmas slippers, but not enough to make anything substantial, so I was thinking I'd make a couple baby hats for my cousin Carey's new twins.  Since I was already sending two Mickey Mouse hats to Carey's sister for her boys, I thought this was the perfect opportunity to whip up these and send them along too.

I used this pattern for the hats.  I had a little trouble with the size initially.  If you read my Mickey Mouse hat post, you'll notice I get very frustrated that I can't make the kiddies try these on while I'm working on them.  So I worked the pattern exactly as posted, but I only did 5 increase rows, which is between the newborn pattern and the 9-12 month size.  The twins will be almost 3 months old by Christmas.

However, I decided this produced a hat that was too big.  These are twins, after all, so they're pretty small.  I tore the hat out and made the newborn size with a hook one size bigger than suggested (I used a K, they suggested a J).  I think they still turned out a little big, but better too big than too small!

These hats were PERFECT for using up the yarn.  I had just enough.  I made a basic bow for Maddie's hat by making a rectangle of sc, then wrapping yarn around the middle of it.  The pom pom for Max's hat was supposed to be green, but I didn't have quite enough, so I made it red and green.  I also separated the bulky yarn into its individual strands so the pom pom was puffier.

I loved the way these turned out.  So cute, and so easy.  As with the Mickey Mouse hats, I have no idea whether these fit the twins.  I hope I get pictures soon.

Mickey Hats for Cousins!

So my cousin, Kelly, contacted me asking if I would make a few Mickey Mouse hats for her boys.  She's surprising them with Disney World later this December.  I said, sure!  So I bought this pattern and got to work.  Both hats were done after two days.

I had all the yarn I needed, which was an awesome surprise.  I didn't have to buy a thing!  I made the size 6-12 years for Kelly's 6-year-old, Dylan, and the size 1-3 years for her 10-month-old, Tyson.  Kelly requested the bigger size for Tyson because his head is almost as big as Dylan's!

I had a few problems with this hat.  First of all, the 1-3 and the 6-12 year patterns ended up being almost exactly the same size.  I was also confused sometimes because when the pattern said to skip certain rows for certain sizes, it was unclear whether I should end up with the same number of rows as the other sizes.  For instance, it would say Row 14-15, but since I already skipped some rows earlier, I wouldn't be on Row 14 yet.  I wasn't sure how many rows I needed to have.  I'm probably just stupid and no one else had this problem.

These size problems made me paranoid throughout the process, especially since I didn't have the kids here to see if they'd fit.  I kept expressing to my cousin how big the baby's hat was, and she kept insisting Tyson's head was huge.  I kind of figured, screw it, it'll be cute if it's floppy.  Better too big than too small, right?  I still don't know if the hats fit because the boys still don't know about the trip.

The other problem I had with the hats was assembling them.  This problem was just due to my perfectionism.  I attached and detached and reattached each piece at least three times.  It was ridiculous.  I also experimented with bigger ears, but they wouldn't stay up.  I don't know how the adult hat would look with those tiny ears.  But on kids, I think they'd look okay.

The hats look super cute, though.  Kelly was so excited to receive them!  I can't wait to get pics of the boys in them.