kid's hats

I went to the San Leandro LYS last week to find yarn for a boy kid's hat, since I just had a lovely lunch at Luke's Grill with a good friend. Wait, that didn't come out right...I had a lovely lunch at LG, then, since I was in the neighborhood, I stopped by the LYS...yeah, that was it...I was in the neighborhood anyways... They are the mecca of Encore, btw. If you need any in any colour, they have it. I was originally looking for some exotic type yarn, or maybe some sort of brownish wool for a 1 year old's hat (his birthday),but I fell in love with this Encore colorway which results in subtle stripes.

I followed the directions from Weekend Knitting (or was that Last Minute Gifts?) and made this.

Specs:
yarn: Encore (less than half a skein)
needles: US6 because that's what I had handy
cast on:64 stitches (originally calculated that I needed to cast on 82 stitches, knit 2 inches of the yarn, realized that this had would fit my head)
followed the pattern for toddler exactly.

With what I had left, I made myself Calorimeter from Knitty. Again, I followed directions. Altho' at the end, I had a bit of yarn left, so I thought I'd knit another row or two (ended up being another inch). Figured, heh, not a big deal. bound off, put on button, THEN tried it on. Looked dumb...Ripped it back to where I should have bound off and bound off properly. Yes, should follow directions.

I had started off making Panta, but the striping looked funny, liked blocks of colour instead of stripes. So I ripped that one. I liked the look of Panta, so I shall make one (perhaps out of decadent cashmere). I'll post a pic another time.

I also made the cupcake hat for my lil cupcake. Instead of casting on 80 stitches, I casted on 64. When I switched to pink, I added an additional 8 stitches so that it would be pouffier. All I can say is that those little frosting things, a pain to do. I opted not to put the red cherry on top because I can see lots of chewing swallowing issues with a mommy-made pompom...I don't want to find red yarn poop in her diapers...