I have the cutest nephew. Seriously. How can you look at his adorable face and not agree with me that he is the cutest little guy ever! I am a proud Auntie :) And, despite some grumbles about this hat pattern that you’ll read below, I’m happy with the hat I knit for him and even happier to see him enjoying it!
To celebrate Burke’s first birthday (unfortunately, from afar), I knit him a beanie hat with cars across it. The pattern is barnelue med flak, and the yarns were Wendy Roam Fusion 4-ply and King Cole Merino 4-ply, two fingering weight yarns left over from the last two pairs of socks I knit (my Teenage Mutant Ninja Knee Highs and my Woodruff Socks). I thought that the yarns made a fun but not garish combination.
I hate to say it, but I don’t actually recommend the knitting pattern. I bought it from an independent designer on Ravelry (since it fit into my criteria for a toddler hat knit in two colors given how much yarn and what size needles I had in my travel bag and I thought that the cars would be cute for Burke). I changed the chart for the car a bit – I don’t think the designer considered that knit stitches are wider than they are tall and the charted car (already quite long and thin) becomes a bit absurdly long and thin when knit as is – so I added an additional row of height in the car. I kinda wish I would have added a second as they are still pretty stretched out.
Another unfortunate part of the pattern is that the instructions on length were pretty opaque. They didn’t give absolute measurements and the descriptions of how to determine the correct measurement from a a range of potential sizes weren’t helpful since I didn’t have a toddler at hand to try the hat onto his head. I’d like to give the author the benefit of the doubt and say that they were lost in translation since the original language was not English. I thought I was knitting a close fitting beanie, given that I picked the shorter end of cap length (or so I thought), but the hat is definitely a bit long.
Finally, there was a mistake in the chart demarcating what part of the chart is the pattern repeat itself and what part are other repeats of that pattern given to show relative positioning. This meant that I knit and frogged the first two rows of the chart 4 times, thinking I was making a counting mistake, before I figured out that the chart was wrong.
I left the strands on the inside of the hat quite loose – looser than I would when knitting a sweater – since I knew that it might stretch a bit to fit his head. I knit the size for 1 yr so that the hat would fit him now, for this winter, understanding that he’ll probably outgrow it by the end of the season. Despite my frustrations at the process, I’ve just got to smile at the end result, because how can you not smile at a cutie like Burke!
The post Burke’s Toddler Car Hat is by Seamstress Erin Designs. If you have found it elsewhere, please let her know!
