Elizabeth's Hat

Tomorrow I go to Austin to visit older daughter and her family. I have Valentine candy for the older grandchildren, but Elizabeth, four months old, isn't quite up to M&Ms yet. Instead, I've made her this flower-wreath hat, designed by Susan B. Anderson and in her book Itty Bitty Hats.

The hat itself is just a generic hat, easy to make, but the flowers are the fun part to make. They are EASY! And so are the leaves. The time-consuming part is attaching them to the hat itself, turning the hat around and around, and deciding when enough is enough. It's a great project for leftover yarn, but I didn't have any cotton yarn and so had to start from scratch. I'll use the rest for what the designer calls the Marley Hat, which, like all the hats in the book, is just SO cute!

For the hat I used a worsted weight cotton Plymouth yarn called jeannee. While I was knitting it up, I didn't like it much for this project - it just didn't seem as sturdy as I would have liked and the flowers get heavy. However, the hat is holding up OK even with the weight of the flowers and leaves, so I guess the yarn has worked out better than I had expected. The colored yarns are all Tahki Yarns Cotton Classic (just a few yards of each) in colors: 3528 (yellow), 3456 (cherry pink), 3713 (green), 3454 (pink), 3800 (turquoise), 3914 (lavender), and 3724 (green). But again, it's a great project for leftover yarns.

If Elizabeth will allow us to put a hat ON her, I'll take a picture of the hat on its model!

(Note: Answer to yesterday's question about balls of yarn: The owner of my LYS says that she supposes the reason that some manufacturers do not wind yarn into balls is to better show the colors - especially with hand-dyed yarns - or the textures of yarns. Also, she says that putting it into balls would add one more process to the yarn production and thereby increase cost. So put a ball-winder and swift on your birthday/Christmas/Valentine's Day/Presidents Day/ Groundhog Day/or Because I Want Them Day list!)