Those Knit Hats Again!

In July, I had made five knit Santa Hats, proud of myself that I had not put it off until the last minute of the holiday season. I described my progress on them in competition with a reading race with my sister in my post for July 15, 2019. I was ahead of the game. And then, one week before my youngest son left for his special needs Christmas camp in the chilly mountains, it occurred to me that he might like one, also. I ordered online a DMC kit of Top This!, Santa version, got it within a few days, and finished knitting it up December 11th, just in time for camp with one day to spare. This makes Santa Hat #6 that I can add to my knitting completions for 2019. I was pleased to learn that it had been chilly enough that he wore his knit Santa Hat the entire time.

I'd completed five Elf Hats in the fall per my November 4, 2019 post. Photos follow of my son's daughters wearing two of the six hats for their family and my daughter's family wearing their four hats.

Christmas in July + a Race

I had knit an Elephant and a Lion Top This! hat, kits from DMC described in my 1/20/19 post. They made up so quickly, I bought five Santa Top This! hats from DMC and five Elf  Top This! hats from DMC to knit for Christmas for my grandchildren. I described their arrival in my post dated 2/6/19. So I thought, "Why not celebrate a little Christmas in July by starting to knit them up?" I certainly will not write ten post for ten hats but I could capture all the Santa progress in one post.

This reminded me of a Christmas tradition my sister and I shared - I live in California and she in North Carolina so we are at opposite sides of the United States. Each year we would ship a batch of Victorian Christmas romance novels to each other (cheap book rate) for the season. We sometimes exchanged the same books back and forth on alternate years but after two years who can remember what they read, especially during the busy Christmas season and with young children populating the scene? Somehow the tradition faded into oblivion. I decided to resurrect it. I sent her five romance novels by Brenda Novak that I had read and liked. They did not have a Christmas theme, but close enough. I had read them and enjoyed them.

I also printed out my blog post review on each and enclosed it in the package:
   #1: https://wanderorponder.blogspot.com/2017/12/ponder-post-finding-our-forever.html
   #2: https://wanderorponder.blogspot.com/2017/11/ponder-post-no-one-but-you.html
   #3: https://wanderorponder.blogspot.com/2017/11/ponder-post-until-you-loved-me.html
   #4: https://wanderorponder.blogspot.com/2018/02/ponder-post-right-where-we-belong.html
   #5: https://wanderorponder.blogspot.com/2019/05/ponder-unforgettable-you.html

My sister got the books on Monday July 8th and texted me at 5:23 PM.

She laughingly challenged me to a race. "I bet I can finish these five books before you finish those five hats!" She had thrown down the proverbial gauntlet. "You're on!" I countered back. Surely I would win. After all, I was on Santa Hat #2 having started two days before she even got the books. But I digress. DianeLoves2Quilt is a crafting blog so here is how the knitting part began.

Saturday, July 6, 2019: Santa Hat #1 

Sizing re-adjustment came first. I learned that the Elephant hat had fit the 3 year old quite well but the Lion hat had been a bit small for the 6 year old. I had made a size that cast on 60 stitches and had used size 8 knitting needles, smaller than the size 9 recommended because I tend to knit loosely. The instructions on the the label were for an infant and a child size. My grandchildren's ages as of December 2019 will be 7¼ and 4½, and 5⅔, 3⅔, and 1⅔. For these Santa Hats, I went back to the size 9 needle recommended and cast on 72 stitches as specified in the free instructions for a small adult size downloaded from 

https://www.dmc.com/media/usa/Top_This_Alternate_Size_Instructions.pdf.

I was concerned that since this larger size had not been included on the label, the kit might not have enough yarn to complete the hats. When I had made the Lion and Elephant hats with 60 stitches, they fit on three size 8 double pointed needles, 20 stitches each. When I cast on 72 stitches instead of 60 on three size 9 double pointed needles, the fit for 24 stitches was more squashed together and it was more likely I would drop stitches off the ends. Although it was convenient to have those white markers midway, the risk of losing stitches outweighed the reminder of midway markers. I decided it would be better to share the stitches among four needles instead of three.

I switched to four double pointed needles with 18 stitches on each needle, with white markers counting off every 12 stitches. This configuration was roomier. Although I did not need the markers until the decrease rounds, they made a nice visual as a check that I had not dropped any stitches – 6 stitches on one side of the marker, 12 on the other side. 

The hat started out as red but quickly rotated through the red and silver/whit two tone and then the black. After the 16 rounds of stockinette stitch after the 12 rounds of ribbing, the yarn change from solid red back to the alternating red and silver/white. I eyed the ball of yarn wondering if I would have enough. My backup plan if I ran out was to finish off the tippy top with black or white or red yarn of my own.

The alternating red and silver/white colored yarn as it came off the skein reminded me of the way radio towers are painted so they are more visible to planes.

After 20 rounds, still at 72 stitches, the decreases would begin. I breathed a little easier since my yarn would go a little further once I began to decrease 6 stitches each round.

Here is the knitted hat with the small amount of black yarn remaining. I did have enough. It will be interesting to see how the striping pattern turns out on the other four Santa hats.

Monday, July 8, 2019: Santa Hat #2
For the second hat I guessed better at how much yarn I needed to cast on and the residual tail is much shorter. Also in this hat, the yarn ball began with the red and white/silver alternating yarn, not the solid red. Only five rounds into it, the black yarn entered the picture.

  
The yarn still followed the same sequence with back unfurling before the solid red followed by the red and white/silver alternating portion. I found these balls were best unwound from the outside rather than from an inner core and a wooden salad bowl provided just the right container to keep it from rolling away.

After twenty-one rounds of stockinette stitch, the black made its appearance again. In Santa Hat #1 there was only a small black patch at the very top. This Santa Hat #2 has a second black stripe.

Here is the completed striping pattern for Santa Hat #2. Confident now that I would have enough yarn for each hat in the supplied ball, I no longer felt compelled to document what yarn remained.

Tuesday, July 9, 2019: Santa Hat #3
The yarn ball for the third hat started with red but this time a lesser yardage than Santa Hat #1 so the two tone section began sooner .

Curious to see the striping pattern, here is the pattern forming after 12 rounds of ribbing and again after 21 rounds of stockinette stitch before starting the decreases.

The hat has only one black stripe unlike hat #2. At the top of the crown of the hat there is a black area. The contrast will show up the Santa head very well.

Thursday, July 11, 2019: Santa Hat #4
Looks like Santa Hat #4 will start with the two tone yarn, like Santa Hat #2 did. Most likely it, too, will wind up with two black stripes.

The following photos show that progress after round 12 where the ribbing ends and the stockinette stitch starts and round 21 when the stockinette stitch starts the decrease rounds at the crown.

Completed Santa Hat #4 has two black stripes as predicted and a completely red crown with a small ball of the two-tone yarn left.

Here is what the hat looks like on the inside when the Santa head has been attached. The ribbons on the Santa are passed through two holes on a foam "button" to stabilize the head. Tying a bow instead of a knot allows the Santa topper to be removed for laundering. It is made out of washable materials but I suspect it would take longer to dry than the hat.

Friday, July 13th - Saturday, July 13, 2019: Santa Hat #5
I actually started this hat on Friday July 12th but had other commitments besides knitting so I did not complete it until Saturday. (A phone call from my sister had alerted me that she had finished reading book #4. She did admit that she had stayed up until 4:00 am and that her eyes were burning. The race was neck and neck.) By the starting sequence with which the ball of yarn had been wound I knew the starting ribbing would be red and that the hat would have only one black stripe.

Again I document the progress after the ribbing is completed at round 12 and after the straight stockinette rounds are completed after an additional 21 more rounds.

After my quilt guild meeting Saturday afternoon, July 13th, I rushed home to complete Santa Hat #5. I texted a "proof of completion" photo to my sister at 8:55 PM, not even taking the time to correct the orientation. (The 7:14 time is when I took the screen capture of my cell phone on Sunday to write this post.)

Here is the orientation corrected. The striping sequence is best viewed in this photo. One household has two grandchildren and the other has three grandchildren. I think I will send the two double black striped hats, Santa Hat #2 and Santa Hat#4, to the two-grandchild household. The other three I will send to the three-grandchild household and the width of red on the bottom edge can determine which child gets which: thinnest red #3 to youngest child, medium wide red #1 to middle child, and widest red #5 to the oldest. My sister teased, "Which hat do you like best and which grandchild do you like best?" I ignored answering that impossible question.

Sunday, July 14, 2019: Final Photos
I wanted a picture of the five Santa hats sort of plumped out as they would be when worn and here it is. I put the hats on bowls to fill them out. Don't they look like an adorable crew? I almost hate breaking up the gang.

This is the counter top setup I used to deploy that varying height array of Santas. I gathered and used five ceramic bowls, three graduated height candle holders, and a few clear glass bowls with a few clear different size glasses stacked to further vary the heights. My husband looked at the kitchen counter and burst out laughing. I'd forgotten I'd bought that trio of multicolored pillar candle holders. I will have to find a place to display them.

This is the remnant yarn from each ball, set along side my 7" long (point to point) double pointed needle for scale. Even with the leftovers from five hats, the combination is not enough for a sixth hat – not that I am dying to do this one more time, mind you! Enough is enough.

My tools of the trade were the size 9 double pointed needles, a crochet hook for picking up the occasional-bordering-on-often dropped stitch, four white stitch markers, a yarn needle and small scissors. Those small white dots are the holes poked out from the soft foam disc placed on the underside of the hat where teh Santa ribbons pass through and tie into a bow. There are six in the photo, and not ten as there should be. The other four are probably on the floor somewhere unless the dog has eaten them already.

My official finish time for completing five hats was Saturday, July 13, at 8:55 PM. This does not included time for the staged photography session of the completed hats nor writing up of this post which I did on Sunday. My sister finished the fifth book Sunday, July 14, approximately 9:12 PM Pacific Standard Time or just after midnight her time, concurrent with me writing this post. Technically, I won the race; but I am most assuredly very grateful to my sister for proving me the incentive to complete five hats in one week's time, Saturday to Saturday. I did also lead my normal life while knitting – for the most part.

I now have five Elf hats to complete but I am taking a break for a while. Those 4th of July decorations are not putting themselves away. Maybe Christmas can come again in August bringing with it another incentivized challenge for knitting five Santa's helpers. I am linking up now with Main Crush Monday MCM#160 at Cooking Up Quilts.

Elephant and Lion Hats

I remember being in North Carolina visiting my sister on a trip in 2015 and browsing a craft store together. I bought two of these Top This hat kits on the bargain table for $1 each intending to make them up immediately. Well you know how that goes. I rediscovered the kits for an elephant and a lion hat in my sewing room the other day and decided that four years had been long enough in temporary storage. Inspired to knit them, I was  surprised to learn that they take merely two to three hours each. Possibly wanting more in the future I researched and found that Mary Maxim still carries these cute hats with animal heads called Top This! by DMC. They are also available other places like JoAnn's and Amazon in a wide variety of heads other than the soccer ball, owl, and elephant pictured in the photo.

The yarn is 78% acrylic and 22% Nylon, and comes in a 2.82 oz ball, enough to make a toddler hat or an adult hat size small. It is self striping with three colors: a solid, a multi color, and another solid with a definitely different fuzzy texture. The non fuzzy portion has a kind of knit cording rather than twisted strand composition. In the following photo, the cording can be seen best in the green and the magenta.  The yellow and the orange are the fuzzy ones.

That two-three hours execution time I mentioned...?  Well that does not count the time of my expeditions before hand. I had to run out specially to buy a shorter 16" long circular needle in US size 8. Apparently I own circular needles only in larger lengths in order to accommodate a large quantity of stitches. The pattern calls for US size 9 but I tend to knit loosely and so went down a size. Two rounds into the hat, I abandoned the circular needle in favor of double pointed needles. My hands were cramping working in the confines of such a small circle. The pattern called for 60 stitches and instead of using four needles and knitting with the fifth I used three and knitted with a fourth. That way I could have 20 stitches on each needle and put a marker midway to give me divisions of ten. This was handy for the decreases which were distributed six to a round near the top. That cheery lilac face on the left is a "yarn cozy" that I bought a few days ago to keep balls of yarn tidy. See post for 1/16/19. I was trying it out and it worked well.

The hat instruction on the inside of the Top This label are quite simple, 10 rounds of ribbing, 15 rounds of stockinette stitch and then the decrease rounds for the crown. To keep track, I have an app on my cell phone called Tap.Count that cost me $.99 to download. Yes, I know I could use a pencil and a piece of paper but this is kind of convenient to have nearby and just touch to increment. (I am also less likely to throw out my cell phone, than I am to inadvertently toss a piece of scrap paper.) In the decrease portion within six sections near the crown of the hat, I had a round where there were 10 stitches between markers, then 9, then 8, etc.  Rather than count rounds, I used the app to help remind me how many stitches I was supposed to have between markers by decrementing... 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. I included a screen shot of the app on the left and a screen shot of its description on the right. I must admit I have been unable to figure out how to increment by anything other than "1" as touted; but then again, I have yet to find a need to count by 2's, 5's, or 10's, at least not during knitting. Maybe my version of the app is not current.

I must admit, the foam backer for attaching the animal head was well glued onto the yarn label. Peeling it off took some persistence because I was being careful not to tear or distort it. I made sure to orient the side with the residual glue against the knit portion of the hat and not outfacing where it might stick to the wearer's hair.

Here is the finished elephant hat. It is really not so pointed at the top like a cone head.

It looks that way because initially I set it over a Hershey Kiss pillow to photograph it.

Stretched over a bowl it looks much more suited to a normal shaped head.

At the website for the Craft Yarn Council I found this head circumference chart with guidelines that a toddler's head typically measures 16-18 inches in circumference. This finished hat measured 13" in a non-stretched, relaxed state but the ribbing can easily stretch to 18". I am hoping it will fit snug enough to stay on but not so tight as to constrict blood flow to the brain. If it is too small, I may make another but have to substitute another yarn for the top of the crown. I have 1.2 oz left out of the original 2.8 oz, which is not quite enough needed for a second hat. If math is to be believed, the first one required 1.6 oz. The elephant head can be easily transferred to the second, larger hat.

I am about to start a second hat out of orange and pink for a lion and have lined up my tools. To be less concerned about size, I plan to use US size 9 needles as called for in the pattern, swapping out the US size 8 that are in the photo. The lilac yarn cozy with the face worked out well so I'd planned to use it again for this hat. Actually, I forgot to use it! But then I did the hat all in one day and it is not like the yarn got bounced around and scuffed up in my knitting project bag. 

Again I will forgo the circular needle, even though I'd also bought a 16" one in US size 9. I'd first thought working with double pointed needles would be more cumbersome, having to stop and switch needles three times a round, but that definitely proved not to be the case, at least it was not for me. I put 20 stitches on each double pointed needle and put markers to designated where 10 stitches fell. I was very careful not to twist when I joined. The beginning of the round is conveniently marked by the strand of yarn left over from casting on.

I did need to be careful that stitches did not slip off the either tip of the needles. When the stitches were centered all was fine, but once or twice I did see a dropped stitch. It occurred at the transition between needles during the stockinette stitch portion where stitches are not compressed so close to each another as they are during ribbing. The wayward stitch had not traveled far down though, and I was able to fish it up easily. The following photo shows just how close those end stitches are to the needle tips. 

The head is very easy to attach since it comes with its own ribbon ties. I tie a bow and double knot it on the inside, leaving the ribbon length untrimmed as is. The head can be removed for laundering or for transferring to a different hat. The character head is 100% polyester so I do not think it has to be removed for laundering. I think that perhaps it might take longer to dry however. 

Voila! The completed Lion head hat is smiling at me. I love how the yarn banded itself and where the fuzzy orange stripe landed.

Using the US size 9 needles the circumference came out slightly larger, maybe by about 1 inch, to 14". It is stretchy enough it is hard to measure for sure.

The elephant and lion buddies look cute side by side. I can just imagine the photo will be even better when it is the children who will be wearing them standing be side by side.

I am crushing on these knit hats right now so I will share with Main Crush Monday #144.