Seriously? Three hats?

I wanted to make Jo a hat since she started school this year. Her favorite color is yellow so I thought...easy, I will just use the standard kids hat pattern. I can do that in my sleep. First I made the hat in bright yellow, her favorite color. It was so cute. Then on the first really cool day I gave it to her.

Seriously? It does not even cover her ears! This is the standard lower elementary hat pattern. I do not know if the it was the yarn or the fact that I knit it while sitting around in the hospital but it was too short. What to do. Make another one of course. So I took this hat, let Scout choose a contrasting color, purple, and crocheted an edge around it. At this point I thought I was making another hat just like this one.

Ok, ears well protected and she was glad to have a new hat. Allison said she liked a 1x1 Rib hat that I had done a long time ago. It had been in and adult size so I had to adapt it to kid size. Again Jo chose bright yellow but I also had some Lion Brand WoolEase White Multi yarn I thought she would like. It has a sparkle thread in it.  We were now doing stripes along wth a 1x1 rib. I thought things were going great. I measured, re-measured, counted. It came out cute but dang, what the heck, it was too short also for what I wanted. I mean seriously, she could wear it with her hair down ok but a ponytail made it hike up.

What the heck? Ok, now I am a woman obsessed, maybe possessed. Yeah I get this way when something does not work the way I want it. I was going to make a hat that would work if I had to research Ravelry and google hats till I was bleary eyed. I had already had to look up how to make sure the rib went to the crown of the hat correctly. I had even emailed my sister knowing she had done a lot of rib hats. Apparently not too many people want to do 1x1 rib for the whole hat. Once you get in the swing of it you really do not have to think about it. I was going to get this right. I was determined. So I reworked the pattern, added a few more stitches in width then measured Jo's head length, again. As I reached the decrease I had to alter the pattern again because of the odd amount of stitches. I decided that if this did not work I was going to have to take a break because this was crazy. I thought this all the time knowing that I would just start over on a new one again. Apparently the third time was a charm. This one seemed to come out good. Oh, yes, when I asked Jo what color we should make this one she said yellow, orange and white. Three colors now? I did not have any orange in the stash but had some I Love This Yarn in Candy Corn. It was perfect. The result? It Fit!!

Finally, it works. It fits, her ears are covered and the ponytail does not cause it to ride up. I also found that the 1x1 rib makes the hat a lot thicker feeling than my regular kids hat of a 2x2 rib for the brim and the standard knit up the rest of the hat. I am so pleased. Now I wonder, how much will I need to reduce it down to make Scout one. You know she is going to want it.