Oooh, love the snowflakes on this snowflake hat! And how 'bout that Maine Coast Blue color, which is almost green and totally fab with the Deep Sea Blue below? This hat came out just as I had imagined it. What a fun and easy little colorwork project!

The only change I made from the pattern was to shorten the top of the hat. It looked too tall in several of the photos I'd seen on Ravelry and as I was working the decreases on the top, I could tell that mine was going that way too. So I worked the decrease round/plain round combination only five times and then just did decrease rounds until I was at the very top. It fits me great - nice and snug and warm - but also sits nicely on wee's little head. (She's a much better model though!)

Which got me thinking that I should make her one of these. She helped me dig through the yarn in my stash to find some yarn that matched her winter jacket perfectly. (The bottom two were the winners!)

She was so excited! One snowflake hat for my little snow flake, coming up!

she's making snow angels in the foyer (in her snowflake pants, of course!)

It's true. She likes pink stuff. A lot. So much so that she constantly uses this line to justify all sorts of things like getting her pink nightgown out of the dirty clothes to wear again, having strawberry flavored milk instead of regular milk, wearing her pink sparkly mary janes in the snow, or having some children's tylenol when she's not sick. "But mommy, I like pink stuff."

Since a pink hat is unlikely to harm her in any way, I thought I'd indulge her passion for pink by making her a pink snowflake hat to match her pink winter jacket. I had planned to use pink and green (the lining in her jacket is a fabulous green), but when I did a little practice swatch, I didn't actually like them together in the hat. In the meantime, wee had pulled out several other pink yarns and was playing with them in the living room. I spied a lighter pink that I thought would look nice with the darker one I wanted to use so I instantly decided to do the hat in two pinks.

Now that I'm into the lighter pink, however, I'm not so sure about it. I really like the two pinks together, but I'm feeling like there isn't quite enough contrast between the light pink and the white to show off those beautiful snowflakes. And now I'm thinking about just doing the hat in the dark pink so those snowflakes can really pop and maybe adding a green pompom.

What do you think?

Wee wanted to watch me take knitting photos the other day and was thrilled with the progress I've made on her Mandarin Petit sweater. I've worked a bit more than one repeat of the color stripe pattern in the yoke and am just about ready to make a placket opening (for the back) and start working back and forth. Not much farther now. Luckily, winter lasts forever in Boston. And the spring is cold.

I finished the double pink snowflake hat last week! Wee tried it on while she was playing wii with her brothers and liked it so much she just kept it on. I hadn't even put a pompom on it yet, but before I knew it the hat was tossed in the hats bin by the door and was in regular use. I wanted to snap some more pics for the blog this weekend but now I can't find the darn thing. Ten to one we lost it in the school and it'll be sitting in the school lost and found all this week while the kids have February vacation.

So, as you can see, I stuck with the white snowflakes and the light pink. I liked it (I like pink stuff) and just kept telling myself that the white would stand out more when the entire snowflake was complete. And it does. Obviously we all really liked the hat since wee wore it enough already to lose it! I really do want to try doing the hat one more time though (and I may have to if I don't find it at the school). I loved the suggestion many of you made of leaving out the white entirely and doing the snowflakes in the opposite pink color, ie, light pink snowflake on the dark pink background and dark pink snowflake on the light pink background. The snowflake hat pattern is fun to do, so I'm happy to make another. And for wee and her 4T sized head, I didn't really make any changes to the pattern besides leaving out about half of the plain knit rounds called for between the decrease rounds. (Pssst.... if you want to make this hat and are having trouble getting the chart to print, you can take a screen shot of the pattern page or grab the jpg from me here.)

In the meantime, while the pink snowflake hat is off on school vacation, I guess I'll just have to make wee another hat.

Tune in later this week to see this one all done!

Guess who's leading the Olympic medal count?

I've been watching a lot of Olympics with the boys during vacation week. They loved the snowboard cross and the moguls best so far but have also enjoyed biathlon and curling. The Germans are very good at biathlon and while we were watching Neuner win the gold yesterday, we caught a glimpse of a sea of German fans all wearing super cool German flag hats. (I couldn't find any pictures but they're standard ski hats with flag stripes like in these German luge helmets.) The boys said they liked them and I pounced. Two German olympic hats, coming up!!

It was hard to find just the right yellow, but the Berroco folks came through for me with the perfect golden yellow in their Pure Merino, which also comes in a great true red and super jet black. (Awesome thing about this hat: both of the boys' favorite colors are in the German flag!!) I'm making up the pattern as I go. I want a basic fleece ski hat look, so I went with a hemmed edging and made the hem really deep to keep the boys' ears warm. I'll probably work the decreases like in my Harry Potter House Hats beanie or the snowflake hats I've been making recently. My goal is to have both done in a couple of days so the boys can wear them while they root on the team! (Side note: hubby just ran downstairs to say, "we're ahead!" I don't think he means the Americans.)

Hey, did you like my little hat switcheroo there? I promised progress on wee's new hat and then the boys jump in with hats of their own. Wee's hat is still missing its finishing touches, but here's a sneak preview of the almost monkey hat.

The first of the boys' German olympic hats is done!

And lookie, here's today's German gold medalist in Super Combined, Maria Riesch, wearing a brimmed version of the German flag cap.

Cool!

PS - The boys are, of course, also Team USA. B was the first one yesterday to run to tell daddy that the US had taken back the lead in the medal count and S has spent the last week learning to play the Star Spangled Banner on his guitar! The recent USA vs. Germany curling match was a real crisis for them until they realized they could just be for whoever wins. Who knew the Germans could curl?

The crocheted monkey earflap hat (pattern here) was way cute even before it got the ears and the flower, but it is crazy cute with them! The Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran was a great choice for the yarn, with a lot of body and squoosh, giving the hat a nice shape in the crochet, and rich colors that look perfect with wee's hot pink jacket.

She loves the hat!

The many moods of monkey: thoughtful monkey (was it don't jump on the bed or jump on the bed?); hiding monkey (hidden monkey, crouching wee one); and everyone's favorite, silly monkey!

As I was taking pictures of wee in the finished hat, an image flashed in my head of a similar picture taken of me around when I was in kindergarten wearing a brown monkey costume for a school festival. I searched through the photo albums and found myself as a little monkey girl.

Aww, it's like the circle of life. Only with monkey costumes.

The boys love their new team Germany hats!

They've worn them to school every day this week. In fact, one's already gotten lost and found again (losing the hat is actually a true sign of affection, since it means that he's brought it with him to wear at recess and after school activities and only lost it at the bottom of his school locker). The boys are genuinely proud of their hats and I couldn't be more pleased.

I did change the decreases at the top from my first version. The beanie style decreases (paired decreases along four axes) weren't exactly right for the boys. It seemed like their skinny little heads couldn't quite fill out the top of the hats and the decreases looked like points on their heads. So I reworked them as traditional decreases and they fit perfectly now, nice and smooth, just like the luge helmets I was using as a model. It was fun copying the slick design of the athletes' helmets and caps. These were simple to make but just in case there's anyone out there who'd like to make one, I'll save you the time of figuring out the numbers and post a pattern later this week.

My silly boys could not stop from giggling when they faced each other for this photo. Who says the Germans have no sense of humor!