Pumpkin mania

Last weekend, T & I took E to a pumpkin patch to take some photos, even though I already had another trip planned for later in the week with our baby playgroup. Of course, it hit me while I was there that it would be super cute if E had a little pumpkin hat to wear while sitting amongst the pumpkins. So I started feverishly knitting one up before our next trip, which was only 4 days later. Not to brag, but I've gotten pretty fast when it comes to knitting up little baby hats. Of course, it would've gone a lot faster if I hadn't decided to get all fancy and put little ribs into it to simluate the ridges on a real pumpkin. I think I must have started over 3-4 times because I kept changing my mind or something kept going wrong, although right now I can't remember for the life of me what that was. It might have had something to do with the fact that I worked on it mostly after midnight (yes, I have some sleep issues of my own to work out).

In any case, I got about 3/4 of the way done with it before I realized that I did not have any brown or even dark green yarn for the stem. So Wednesday afternoon, I made a quick run to Hobby Lobby while we were already out only to discover that they didn't have the right yarn in brown. Rather than make another stop at the good yarn store (the cranky baby timer was ticking down to its final seconds), I decided to just make do with some cheap 'Sugar n' Cream' yarn. Not even close to the right gauge, but at least it was the right color and right material - 100% cotton. It was a little difficult to work with because it was so much thicker, but I think it turned out pretty well.

I also had a little trouble figuring out the best way to start the decreases with the ribs, and only realized after I'd already decreased 3-4 rows that I probably should have done them before and after the purl stitches. It was way too late and I was way too tired to rip back and do it over, so again, I just made do. I wanted to make a little green leaf too to hang off the stem, but again, did not have the right yarn and also, by the time I finished everything else, including weaving in ends, it was almost 2am. I think next year's hat will be rockstar quality.

Here's a picture of the hat by itself. I also didn't get a chance to block it, so it still looks a little rough. It served its purpose though, and we got a lot of compliments on it.