Baby hats!

My two latest projects were the baby hats for Alexis and Amalya Cygna. I'm pleased with the results, as well as the process. Lots of 'learning' as I went.


First, the strawberry:
It was my first attempt with DPN's and colour stranding. The first first attempt worked out okay, but I messed the decrease up. Turned out the 'mess up' was due to both not being used to DPN's and also the pattern. I cast on 72 stitches for the toddler size and the decrease for that should start with one more stitch (K2tog, K7). This isn't marked, and though an experienced knitter would probably figure this out, I didn't.

So I frogged down to where the decrease started, then had confusions about the colouring, so frogged that to. Redid the colour and a bit of the decrease... only to notice that starting with one more stitch messes up the decrease! Or rather, messes up the stitch pattern.

It was a toss-up: start the decrease with 6 and have a slightly messed up end, but keep the curve of the decrease in the middle of the leaves, or do the decrease properly and have the curve not-so-centered on the leaves.
I opted for the latter, and I'm pretty pleased with it. Got nice puckering leaves, and though the swirl isn't in the middle, that's okay with me.

I also decided to just have a little stem instead of the 'umbilical cord' knot on top- looks more like a real fruit that way.


Next, the leaf hat:

After doing the strawberry, the basic pattern was super easy. The decrease worked perfectly, since I didn't have colours to confuse me, and this pattern was more clear about the bigger size. Plus they had a knit-all row between decrease rows, which I think looks prettier, but would have possibly made for too much leaf on the strawberry (or maybe would have looked better? Oh dear oh dear I want to try that too now. No. Must not be a perfectionist.).
The challenge was the leaf, and after initial confusion (do I keep doing it i-cord style, or do I turn it around? {answer: not i-cord, turn it around}) it turned out to be easy, and looks really nice! Not quite the same stitch definition in the middle as in the pattern, but that's due to my yarn.
Got to learn slip-slip-knit too. I think this one is cuter than the strawberry almost, plus a lot simpler. I saw a cute apple version on Ravelry (red main part, brown i-cord, green leaf) that maybe I'd do a variation of. I think a bit of colour distinction would really make the leaf stand out nicely.


In conclusion, baby things are cute and I want to knit more. But next on the menu: skate guards!

(Will add some photos to this wall of text soon, I have two teddy bear models just dieing to show off before I pop these things in the mail.)