Experiment Turned Lovely

Wednesday I decided to try knitting a hat from the top down to see if it changed the way the top looked on a standard loomed hat. It looks fine when the hat is worn, but I personally don't care for the way these loomed hats look when they're not being worn. As it turned out, looming the hat from the top down didn't make a difference in how the top of the hat looked, but it resulted in the bind off edge on the bottom being far too tight.

So, I unraveled the bind off edge and re-knit the hat last night. The whole thing unraveled, but when I came to the drawstring cast on I'd started with, it wouldn't unravel any further. So I bound off the hat and set the sad little bundle of loops off to the side.

Looking at it again this morning, I saw how the bundle of loops could be turned into a sweet little flower with the addition of one of the buttons I picked up a few weeks back, so I stitched it into the ring of loops and added it to the hat.

My youngest was nice enough to model the finished hat for me this morning. It was made for a smaller girl, so I didn't try to fit the hat all the way on her head. The knit has an amazing amount of stretch and spring back unless you tug on it really hard.

Although, I don't think she's too happy about my using her as a sizing model for the younger children's hats I'm making to give away for the holidays. She likes her hats, and she doesn't quite understand I'm just checking the size and not giving her the hat to keep.

She's disappointed now, but she has a couple hats of her very own for under the tree this year. She just doesn't know it yet.

I'm not sure if I'll be offering these knit hats in the store or not. Like I said, I'm not happy with the shape of them when their not being worn. Once things slow down, I'm planning to add crocheting to my skills. I think I'll be able to produce better looking headgear that way.