Two Hats

I finished my niece's and nephew's hats in time for our Christmas get-together last Friday. I think they're pretty cute, if I do say so myself. I got the pattern from a site that lists free online patterns. Unfortunately, I don't remember where I found that, but here are the patterns for the two hats:

My niece told me she wanted a rainbow hat with pink hearts on it. As soon as I saw the yarn I knew it would work, I just had to find a pattern. I was browsing around when I found this pattern. It looked perfect. At first, when I was reading the instructions, I thought it was wrong, but then I realize you're starting at the top of the hat, not the bottom. You knit straight and then draw a chain through some yarnover eyelets and pull it tight and that closes it up. It was a lot of fun to make.

I had already decided I was going to knit up some pink yarn and felt it, then cut out the hearts and sew them on. I was knitting up the yarn here, and my niece, who is quite the crafter herself, asked what I was doing. "I'm knitting up some yarn so I can felt it, then I'm going to cut hearts out of it," I told her. She gave me the strangest "why on earth would you go to all that trouble?" look just as I was realizing that she has tons of felt from her sewing projects (she makes the coolest samplers) and realized I could probably just borrow some from her. Which is what I did to get the hearts on there. This was a really fun project, and my niece seemed to like it.

I found the pattern for my nephew's hat from the same site. It's the same yarn, in a little less rainbow-y colorway. I like the way the colors pool. Unfortunately, I was in such a hurry to finish it that I forgot to purl the two rows I was supposed to purl about 6-1/2 inches up, but I think it works just fine without it. I didn't have time to redo it. I also made a pom-pom instead of a tassel. I thought that would be more fun for my nephew. He put it on as soon as he opened it. Of course, the pom-pom fell off almost immediately. I'll have to reattach it before I leave.

All in all, I was pleased with the results.