Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Haille's Magic Unicorn Hat!!!


Last Saturday my friend Angie and I decided to take our kiddo's out in the snow to go sliding. We went to the park and had a blast sliding down the hill on tubes and plastic slides. There were a bunch of people there with their kids, and what a great hill! kids were flying down there taking spills into snowbanks!

While we were there, Haille, Angie's 5 year old daughter was admiring Caleb's Mohawk hat. When she found out that I had knit it myself, she asked if I could make her a hat too. I asked her what kind of hat she would like, and leave it to a 5 year old to give you a challenge, she replied "A unicorn hat!!!"

Well that was right up my alley because I've been looking for something fun and experimental to knit. I looked online for patterns, searched through my knitting books, but I couldn't find anything like what I was thinking of, so I set to improvising a pattern.

I'm a big fan of earflap hats. They're just so darn cute, so the basis of the hat was an earflap hat, knit in the round on size 9 circs. I used worsted weight Bernat Wool Blends Natural Blends yarn in Rich Violet. It's 80% acrylic and 20% wool, so I figure it won't be itchy, will only felt very slightly, yet still be nice and warm.

for the ears I picked up and knit18 stitches on each side of the hat making the proper increases and decreases. The horn was knit separately out of Briggs and Little Heritage Bleached White wool on size 3 DPN's. I then stuffed it with poly-fibre fill and sewed it on.

The mane and tassle's on the ties is the Bernat yarn and Briggs and Little Wool, with some Paton's Classic Merino in That's Pink.

I'm still undecided on whether or not I'm going to lightly felt the hat, but I think I may, just to shrink it a little, because it needs to fit the head of a 5 year old.

This was a super fun hat to make, and I had a chance to use up some of my yarn stash. I'm in the process of writing up the pattern and will post it when I'm done.

PS: This hat got featured on Craftster on the knitting boards! :D <3

4 comments:

angie said...

I LOVE IT!!!
HAILLE LOVES IT TOO AND IS WAY TOO EXCITED!
THANKS SO MUCH. YOU ARE WAY TOO AWSOME!

Laura Johnson said...

Any way to get the instructions on the horn and ears? Thanks!

MaritzaV. said...

How much would you knit one of these hats for?

Unknown said...

I LOVE this hat! Yea u knit it a while ago and u said u would post the pattern when u finished writing it and i reallllllllllly want it! Where is the pattern?