This is the third Totoro fair isle hat I have made.
A friend's mom collects images of Mt. Fuji and saw my last Totoro hats and asked for one of her own. I think this hat will be super cute to add to her collection of Fujisan images. She asked for it to fit a head size of 23 inches, so made it a little looser than
the last one, which was already larger than
the first. It is pretty much necessary to get it to fit nicely, since as I mentioned before there is NO stretch to the yarn or the fabric it creates.
I'm working again with a 6mm hook, but trying to be mindful of working loose on the hook. I started with a foundation single crochet 72 around. Then increased up to 78 (11sc, inc around) in the second round. For Row 3, I started working around in the waistcoat stitch. Overall, I added another row to this design since the last ones I felt were a little short and I ended up putting a few brim rows on so that they would cover your ears.
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| you can see the carried along yarn inside |
I needed to get a little extra yarn for this hat since I was already working on leftover yarn from the first two. As it is, I have a fourth Totoro fair isle idea in the works that will use up what was left from the new skeins of this third hat.
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| almost done with the design rows |
This time instead of bundling the two other stands into the back of every stitch, I used more of a knitting technique of picking up the other color strands every three or four stitches. It made the fabric a little lighter overall I think, and certainly less stiff. I do worry about the exposed yarns snagging on bobby pins or hair clips, but hopefully it will be ok since she has short hair.
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| starting to decrease |
This hat was a little slow going like the others and it is kind of a pain to keep the colors from tangling since you work with three at once. I feel like I should come up with some sort of toilet paper holder rack to put the three skeins on so they can spin in place. In any case, I finished it in good time I think.
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| Totoro side |
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| Mt. Fuji side. |
As before I added a few more white pips of stars in the decreasing rounds. I didn't think a pom on the top would look right for this hat, so we left it off. Overall I am pretty happy with how this third effort turned out. Think I've got it to a good size to fit many heads and a good space to work out designs.
Difficulty: Intermediate
Time to complete: 15 hours
