December #3, 4 & 5 - A Pound of Pink

My niece has a little girl who loves everything pink. I've made pink hats, pink mittens, a bright pink sweater and this Christmas a soft pink ballet wrap. I was rather late getting started (per usual) and needed to pick up yarn quickly on my way home from work, which took me to JoAnn's and had be buying Lion Brand's Pound of Love, which I am now referring to as the "Pound of Pink". What to do with so much pink yarn? Make hats of course!

I made a couple of preemie hats for a future charity, baby hats for a current charity, but that barely put a dent in the yarn. Plus I was already fairly sick of just pink. Time to add in other yarn.

Peony (or hat #3) used up the last bit of the Berroco Comfort Pot-Au-Feu from the December Big Stripe hat and took on a whole new look when combined with this soft pink. Pattern is Hat #18 Scrap Happy and is available as a free Ravelry download. It is knit with a size 6 16" circular needle and a set of 6 dpns. Stitches used were knit, slip and k2tog. I used the pattern last February for my Happy Stripes but wanted a smaller hat than the pattern called for. Simple solution was to c/o only 72 stitches and adjust the decreases accordingly. This hat looks so much different than my first which was a riot of color changes. I'm far more pleased with the results of this hat than I expected. I really, really like the softness of the color. Sometimes I still surprise myself.

Pink Flapper (or hat #2) incorporated some Hobby Lobby I Love This Yarn in Mixed Berry. The pattern is Guinny's Despicable Hat and is available as a free Ravelry download. It is knit on a size 7 16" circular needle and a set of 7 dpns. Stitches used were knit, purl, k2tog, and SSK. The pattern called for a c/o of 70 stitches, but I choose to c/o 72 stitches instead. I then adjusted my decreases to compensate. The earflaps were to be picked-up from the inside in order to be seamless, but for me they wouldn't have been, so I picked-up mine from the outside. Which picking up stitches is always a struggle. I use a crochet hook and actually crochet the stitch onto the knitting needle. It works. 

Pink Berry (hat #3) also used the Hobby Lobby yarn on a size 7 16" circular needle and a set of 7 dpns. Stitches used were knit and k2tog. I c/o 80 stitches, K2P2 for about an inch then two rows of stockinette before beginning the stripes. Three rows of the dark pink and six of the light pink. I started std decreases at about 5.5 inches from c/o edge.

The lighting is terrible in these pictures, but if I wait for it to warm enough to go outside, it would be June.