Crocheting happiness

Or, at the very least, a hat. I made myself a tam this weekend to cover zee locks. Found this pattern courtesy of the Nappturality forums. It’s huge, but someday I will fill this hat.

Until then, it’s a little floppy.

I used a standard black cotton yarn (Sugar n Cream) for this so it would be airy enough for North Carolina summer wear. I’ve also got brown and purple cotton I might use to make others. Doing another in acrylic yarn for the winter will be a cinch, although I’d worry a bit more about finding strange colors in my hair with acrylic.

I made a few changes to the pattern. When I got to the end, I found the hat too loose for my head at the rim. I added one more row on the double crochet decreases and I decreased about 4 times on the final single crochet “rim”.

…And it’s still looser than many might prefer. You could easily go into that last double-crochet row and increase the number of decreases; instead of decreasing on stitches 7/8, decrease on every 4/5, for instance.

Aside from my head being a bit small (first time I’ve ever said that in my life — my family is full of big-headed people!), I really like that pattern. That’s the first pattern I’ve successfully done by crocheting in the round, and I had almost no trouble. Well, there is a strange issue of there being gaps at the end of each round, but it’s easy enough to stick another stitch in there to make it look fuller. I’m not sure what I’m doing wrong there; my tension looks pretty even all the way around each row.

It would also be cake to toss in other colors. After I finish my Blanket Of Doom for my buddy Mike O (if only it weren’t so wide… doing a row takes 15 minutes), I may use the extra acrylic yarn from that project (dark brown, light brown, and cream) to make the winter tam. Hell, I’ve got this crazy sport-weight yarn Mae’s mother got me that would, if crocheted loosely, make a fun one. More like a net than a hat, in that case.

Now I just need my hair to grow to fill it. “Grow hair, grow!”