Cute girl’s hat

Over Christmas I made a simple hat for two of my nephews (at the time, one was 6 years old & the other one was a few weeks old) – will post about those later.  Of course, I had to follow those with a hat for my niece who lives in Miami as well!  When I asked her what she wanted, she said something “pink and purple” – so that helped narrow down my ideas.  Plus, I know that she LOVES frilly, heartsy, girlie stuff.  So this ended up being perfect.  I started with this purple yearn that has some pink mixed in.  A friend  of mine actually gave the skein to me after she started a baby blanket for our other friend, but decided that it was taking her too long, and thus made her something else.  So, I got to benefit!

To make the hat, I cast on about 90 stitches onto size 7 circular needles.  I basically worked in stockinette stitch (which on circular needles = knitting all the time) for about an inch and a half, when I realized that the hat was going to be WAY to big.   SOO, to make it a little tighter, I added cable knits periodically throughout the hat n a checker board fashion.  I basically cabled 8 stitches (4 for each side) about 5 times in the round.  Then knitted 5-8 rounds after that as usual, and then cabled again, but this time I did them in between the first row of cables.  This gave the hat some elasticity and tightness near the top.  Which was great!  Plus it gave it a cool pattern.  At the end, I made 2 flowers using crochet needles, and here is the finished product below on my niece!  I think she seems pretty happy !=)