Pretty Berea Kitty Hat

Once upon a time, way back in Nov. 2000, I attempted to design a hat as a gift for the KnitList. ( http://www.knitlist.com/ )

I made an adorable (in my opinion) fluffy kitty cat hat for my youngest daughter. She wore to take this picture. Then the first time she wore it for real was with my DH. They went to the mall on Dec. 23rd. (You see where this is going, don't you?)

Yes, he lost the hat. I had had surgery and DH took the kids to the mall while he bought my Christmas present. He checked with all the assorted lost and founds and called back several times but the hat never turned up. I was crushed. I didn't even want to think about the hat after this.

But low and behold. Searching under my bed I found a 3 ring binder and found one lonely copy of my design. So I'll post it here again and mourn my loss. (sniff!)

I want to apologize for the photo. This was 4 years ago and I cheap digital camera DH had. No other copies of the photo were saved.  It was printed on regular printer paper. I know it's a lousy scan but you should get the gist.

Pretty Berea Kitty Hat

Original 2000 instructions follow:

This is my first feeble attempt at designing. Actually I wouldn't call it designing. I would call it "winging it." I saw a cute bear looking hat made from this yarn at a not so LYS, bought the yarn, and of course the wonderful Finnish LYSO who made the hat, didn't use a pattern. Her pattern had a scarf that buttoned around the neck. I decided that this was not the safest idea for a toddler and made my hat without it.

Just a reminder, this is not the Bible, since I was winging it, you may need to tweak the pattern to get it to do what you want! Feel free!

This fits Berea just two days after her 2nd birthday. It would be easy to adjust up or down as the case may be.

Materials:

1 50 gr. ball Sirdar Snowflake

1 50 gr. ball Jolie angora-merino in a lovely pink-mauve color

I only used about half the snowflake in the hat. One ball would make 2 hats, or a hat and mittens. I only used a small amount of the angora merino blend. You could get by with leftovers from another project. I used this in the ears and to line the inside of the hat for a couple of inches as I don't trust the 100% polyester of the Snowflake for warmth.

Gauge: About 4 stitches per inch

Needles: I used size 7, a 16" circular and a set of double pointed.

Cast on 76 stitches in pink angora in long tail method. I recommend this cast on as after you finish the hat you will go back and pick up the bumps left on the inside from the cast on to knit a hem.

Make the side that looks like an embroidered outline stitch the right side. The side of the cast on with the bumps is the wrong side.

After cast on, switch to the snowflake yarn. I turned the knitting so I was knitting inside out. The right side of my hat was on the inside of the circular needles and the wrong side on the outside. That way I could knit all the time and the fuzzier purl side would be on the right side.

Knit one row completely.

Next row, knit 48, turn work.

Next row, slip 1, purl 46, turn.

Slip 1, knit 44, turn

Slip 1, purl 38, turn

Slip 1, knit 36, turn

Slip 1, purl 32, turn

Knit until the front, the shorter area without the short row "flaps" you just made measures 4".

Knit one more row, make one stitch for a total of 77.

Next row: Knit 9, K2tog, repeat til end

Next: Knit 8, K2tog, repeat til end

Next: Knit 7, K2tog, repeat til end

Continue in this manner until you have 11 stitches remaining. Break yarn, run through live stitches, draw up and secure.

Switch to pink angora. Go back and pick up 76 bumps from the inside of your cast on. Do a K1 P1 rib for about 2 inches or as you see fit. This is to add a bit of insulation to the hat. Then carefully tack down the hem to the hat when it is the desired length. I used embroidery floss.

Ears:

In Snowflake: c/o 10 stitches, knit 4 rows even.

Next row: Knit 1, K2togB (through the back of the stitches) K4, K2tog. K1

Next row: Knit 1, K2togB, K2, K2tog, K1

Next row: K1, K2togB, K2tog, K1. 4 stitches remain. Bind off.

Repeat for 2 white ears and 2 pink ears. Tack the pink onto the white Snowflake ears. Try hat on child, if possible, and carefully position into place and tack to hat with embroidery floss.

If no child is available, I tilted the ears jauntily and sewed on close to the front. Trust me, it is very important that the child can easily see the ears each time he or she looks in the mirror, or in his refection in a window.

Lengthen the ears to be a bunny, or make them rounder to be a bear. This knits quickly in just a couple hours of TV watching time and makes for quick gifts.

Comments

[Jan]

Saw your post on knitlist about this. It looks just the thing for my 2 year old grandaughter, recovering from a nasty tonsillectomy. Still summer here, but she'll get a kickout of it.

Don't think we have Snowflake here, but it looks a bit like Caressa tension which is rather nice and has been around down here for about 30 years.
Jan

[Anita Mendenhall]

This sounds like a very cute cap. I used to make little boy helmets without ears but trimmed with angora. My nose was always itchy from the angora. The pattern I used was in a very old Doreen book.

Thanks for the pattern

[Elizabeth]

Thank you! I may need to try to size this hat up and make another one! Angora gets in my nose too! I try to see if I can get cown with it all in one sitting!

Elizabeth

[jean daly]

Do u have a helmit pattern that has little short ears or do u know where I could get one? Thanks J Daly