Wednesday, January 23, 2008

accidental hat

I've been working on a project to use up all those little bits and bobs of yarn I have lying around. Not the half balls, but all those really tiny lengths that I couldn't quite bring myself to throw out... I had quite a collection!

I am in the 'bag zone' at the moment and my daughter has been begging me to make her something. So I decided to go with a random striped bag using all those leftovers.

Yesterday I was sewing up the bag, when my daughter came over to see what I was up to...

"Is that for me?" she asked

"Yes"

"Can I have a look?"

"Sure"

She picked up the bag, put it on her head and said

"Oh, I love my new snow hat mummy!"

I tried to explain to her that it was actually going to be a bag...

"Don't be a silly mummy" she laughed

So a hat it is... an accidental hat... but she loves it, and it fits, and you can't ask for much more than that!

2008_0123accidentalhat0020


here's the pattern (if you can call it that)
(fits 2/3 year old)
yarns required
- whatever you have on hand!
- I have used lots if scraps for this one, mostly wool
also
- 3.0 mm crochet hook
- wool needle

let’s begin
ch 41 (the length of this chain will be the height of the hat, including a foldover for the brim… adjust number of chain if desired)
row 1 – sc into 2nd chain from hook, sc to end (40)
fasten off yarn
turn work and join on new colour
row 2 – ch 1, sc in every stitch to end (40)
fasten off yarn
turn work and join on new colour
continue working rows of random colours until work measures circumference of head plus 2 cm
(you might like to refer to the standard head size chart here)
seam to join the starting and finishing rows
lay hat flat, with the seam in the desired position ( I prefer centre back)
tie together the ends at the top of the hat… this creates the tassel and joins the top at the same time
trim tassels to 3cm
fold over brim
sew in all remaining ends

2008_0123accidentalhat0053 2008_0123accidentalhat0041 2008_0123accidentalhat0046 2008_0123accidentalhat0054

28 comments:

The Distracted Photographer said...

O my goodness, that is so cute--the hat looks adorable on your very cute daughter. You should make her a matching purse now ;)

--Beadsandyarn from Ravelry

Molly said...

That is the coolest hat I have ever seen!

Molly

Suzetta said...

Cute. I love your daughter's beautiful eyes.

Anonymous said...

Oh my goodness, I love this!! I bet my nephew will wear it, I'm gonna make one and see what he thinks :D

Thanks!

laughing purple goldfish said...

thanks everyone...

the 'accidental hat' has become my daughter's kinder hat... and always gets comments!

I've even caught my son (6) wearing it... he loves it too, so I'll need to make a larger one for him to enjoy too

Anonymous said...

Hmmmm... Keep her!!! :)

Deidre Eyles said...

That is toooo funny! Aren't daughter's priceless? My 9yr old did the same thing with a felted bowl I made. I asked my dd's how they liked my bowl and she promptly put it on her head! Then I was making a wave pattern bag and my 6yr old put my wave pattern bag on her head. She said it made a better hat!

laughing purple goldfish said...

she is priceless... I will keep her :)

Anonymous said...

That hat is awesome. Wish I could make it and sell it. LOL
But, I respect your policy :)
I would get frustrated everytime I had to add a new color. LOL

laughing purple goldfish said...

wrappednwarmth - that's why I added the tassels... so I didn't have so many ends to sew in :)

Tricia said...

Have you thought of using the same color for 2 rows so that you only add colors on one end, that way you would only have to the ends to tie together, but none to sew in.

laughing purple goldfish said...

tricia - I did think of that... but only as I was cursing about sewing the ends in... too late!

donna said...

brilliant, i love it i really must learn to crochet!

Patty (Mummatutu) said...

OMG that hat reminds me of an afghan my mother made almost 30 years ago when she was teaching me to crochet (I was about 6) she used all the left over yarn strads she had from the millions of sweaters she knit. They were literally strands of yarn that would come out to just about 1 color per row same as this hat... thanks for bring back such a wonderful memory ot me!!!

Kathleen said...

This hat is so cool! I'm really new to crochet and think this is a pattern I could follow and actually make it look like its supposed to look. I'd want it to fit my head though. How would I go about making it bigger?

Anonymous said...

I love the hat and I see your daughter is a creative as you are. I use my kitchen scale to weigh the yarn left over from my projects and select new projects according to how much scrap yarn I have. Many small charity projects or gifts like..hats, mittens, ect.. can be made with small balls of yarn and I never throw away even my small scraps. I tie all the really small scraps together and wind them into one big ball. When large enough I crochet it into small multicolored cage mats for the Local shelter or animal Hospital. They are pretty strange looking but since animals are color blind all they care about is the comfort anyway. The cage mats are machine wash/dry and they last a long time. My Animal Hospital will take all they can get. Makes me feel like I am doing something good.

Anonymous said...

That is so innovative. I love making thins with older things that I have left over of and have no clue what to do with it. Thanks. I'm going to teach this pattern to my crochet class. Thanks again for not being selfish with ur great idea. Its very big of u.

Trisha-Lynn said...

this is very creative i think im going to try to make this but as a bag i think this will make a cute bag plus im 18 i dont have any kids =]

Pam said...

I made this hat for my 3 year old granddaughter and I loved it. Does anyone have a pattern for leg warmers?

Thanks
A newbie(very newbie in training)
Pam

knitting said...

Thanks for sharing. your site is constantly monitored and also recommend to friends

Anonymous said...

SOOO CUTE!!! that is a great idea to use all of those extra pieces in such a creative way, and I think it looks great!



I will be making this today for sure!

Anonymous said...

Would be helpful if it gave an approx width of hat or how many rows to do.

laughing purple goldfish said...

I agree... some measurements would have been wonderfully helpful - but I neglected to take them at the time... and it's a few years back now that I made it

here's a link to a chart which gives standard head sizing details - hope it helps

http://www.craftyarncouncil.com/headsize.html

christine m. said...

I made this for my 7 year old daughter and she absolutely loves it. her 3 year old sister now wants one also. i love this pattern so easy its the best hat ive made yet. thank u so much =]

ChilliQueen said...

I loved this hat so much & decided to make it; however I ran out of scrap yarn half-way through, so I couldn't finish it (it was against the grain to go out and buy wool to make an "accidental hat"). So I turned it into a crochet hook case, and made a scalloped peach-coloured trim around the edges of it. It looks beautiful. Thanks so much for the inspiration!

laughing purple goldfish said...

chilliqueen... I'm loving the crochet case idea... might need to 'steal' that at some point! brilliant

Anonymous said...

this makes me feel like i can make a hat too ...just getting started and very inspiring !

Anonymous said...

A friend uses up the very small wool ends by knotting them together and crocheting a pet blanket, with all the ends poking up as tassels. Very effective and the pets love them.