Tulip Hat Take 1

To use our new Kool-Aid dyed yarn, I was looking around for a hat pattern that covers the ears, but doesn't have ties for under the chin (the kids don't seem to like those much, as I discovered last year), and found this pattern: The Tulip Hat.  I liked it a lot, and enjoyed knitting it.  I gave in to the impulse that demanded a bit of tulip stem at the end; after all, we had made green yarn as well, so why not?  All done, but not entirely sure of the stem, I took photos, and sent them to my husband at work, who was sweet enough to humour me and answer promptly rather than wait until the end of the day to see it in person, doubtless knowing that that long a wait would drive me nuts.  He wrote back that the stem looked fine, but that the main body looked like it could be a bit longer.

I decided it was fine, (after all, I had tried it on her a few times, and it fit, right?) wove in the ends, and then tried it on her again. Decided it could have been a little longer after all (like my husband said) before shaping started, so crocheted some edging on it. Tried ruffled edging for fun; it looked great, but didn't cover the ears anymore (which was the point of the hat after all). Re-did edging with plainer edging.

Bribed the kid with Smarties to wear it long enough for me to take photos.  (This should have been sign, really.  Since when is this kid reluctant to wear a hat?  Perhaps when it's uncomfortably small?)  It covered the ears better, but not perfectly. She played along for the photo shoot, and after a bit I realized that it had bunched up at the top a little, the reason being that the whole thing is just too darn small. I'll have to frog it entirely and start over, which wouldn't be quite so bad if I hadn't woven in the ends.  Sigh

Anyway, I still love the pattern, which is blameless.  After all, it's just that my kids have big heads (in this case, just barely short of 19"), and I didn't want the gauge any looser than the 6.5 sts/inch that I ended up with (using sport weight yarn and 4 mm needles).  I'm thinking I should really just make grown-up size hats for the kids from now on, so perhaps when I start over, I'll try with two pieces of this yarn held together, bigger needles, and hope that I don't run out of yarn.