Heather’s Jack-o-lantern
Alan and Heather got the last pumpkin in the store yesterday. It was a huge pumpkin for $3.99, but it was a bit moldy inside….can’t have everything and the Jack-o-lantern only has to last a couple of hours anyway. Heather carved it a dusk and I think it looks great.
A while ago I was saying to Heather that I would like to do a Santa hat nearer to Christmas. I got ‘MUM, Santa hats are NOT knitted, you might as well make a witches hat too!’. Of course, this made the idea of a felted witches hat pop into my head.
…before felting
I was making the witches hat till the last minute. It still needs some work to make the brim stay up, and I will decorate it a bit more. It is, however sort of the right size and shape, so that part is good. The washing machine ate my tension square. I made one. Honest. We looked all through the laundry last weekend and it had disappeared without a trace. I looked up what people said the shrinkage was for Patons Classic Wool then did the math and went for it. Here are the before and after pictures. Included in the picture is another hat that Heather calls ‘Penquin in a Hoop Skirt’. I should have followed my own advice and ripped it out when I noticed I had put and extra stitch in the ghost’s belly, but the intarsia was causing me grief and I didn’t want to redo it.
Penquin in a Hoop Skirt and the Witches hat
So, to sum up, a bare pass and an epic fail….
gillianknits 
Don’t be so hard on yourself. Looks great to me. At lesdt you tried. Most people just buy!
Thank you, but I didn’t think I was being hard on myself, just honest. I do have some hats I have done that I like. These are just not two of them. If I hadn’t chosen to cheat and show the witches hat on the ironing board, it would be obvious that it is unwearable in its present state. I am not sure how I am going to engineer the fix though. I think if you make more than a hundred hats without patterns, some will be duds and you just have to accept it.
Honest is good but I sometimes think that us creatives are too honest with ourselves! Have you really made more than 100 hats? That is amazing.
yeah, we did a photoshoot when my family got together for the August long weekend and I took 80 hats there so I could start the blog about my design process. When we got home we found more of them around that hadn’t been caught in the great gathering…and I keep making them. I am usually working on about 3 at a time using different techniques, so I don’t get bogged down in any of them and each one is a change from the others if you know what I mean. That way I can get to the end of a tough one interspersed with easy ones. I also like to have a mindless knitting project on the go. I have found that people don’t get offended by my knitting as much if I don’t look at it when I am talking to them. I am at the point now where as I am making the hats, I come up with ideas for more. I have a set of 10 styrofoam/mannequin heads. I keep these full and on display, but I have two pillowcases stuffed with the excess. I thought I was writing down the patterns diligently, but my notes seem to be sketchier than I thought. I am now being more disciplined about that…
Phew. Sounds like you have LOADS of hats. I am totally in awe!
I really love making them and figuring out how to solve the problems as they come up. I find that process becomes easier the further I go into the project. The laundry basket that is my icon (I am very new to this wordpress thing so I don’t know what the context for seeing that picture is) is actually the pile of hats I took to the photoshoot. You will end up seeing them all over time if you persevere with me that long…
Good on you. xxHave you heard of Woolly Wormhead? She specializes in hats too.
no, but I will check it out…thanks
Did you find her? She is on ravelry.
Yes. I did find her…she seems prolific and has turned them all into patterns…I like many of her hats. I am not sure I am in that league though. I have never been on ravelry before, but I am told I should. I guess exploring that should be on my list of things to do soon…gillian
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