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There are 22 hats that I gave a rating of 4 or higher. Here they are starting with the ones that had a rating of four. Most of these were given to Neighborhood House in St. Paul or Ramsey County Social Services. If it went somewhere else, I put that in the list. Clicking on the photo should take you to the original blog post for that hat. Five hats got ratings of four:
Seven hats had ratings of 4.5:
And finally, here are the ten hats that all got a rating of five out of five:
One of the reasons I started making hats in general was that I don't really like them. They often crush my glasses against my ears or just look weird. Overall it was a pretty good year of making hats. I learned a lot about reading vintage patterns and ended up with two hats that I like!
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I made 38 hats in 2022. The patterns ranged from 1965-1986 and more than half of them had a rating of 4 or higher. This week I'll share the ones that were the worst and those that were sort of meh. Next week I'll share the best and tell you which ones I kept. I think I rated a little harsher as I went through the year so some of the ones that I did in the beginning might have better scores than I would give them now. Clicking on the photo will take you to the blog post for each of these. The Worst (ratings of 2.5 or below):
The "Not so bad" (rating of 3-3.5): There were seven hats that had a rating of 3 and two that had a rating of 3.5.
Next week will be the 22 hats that had a score of 4 or higher. The Clouds and Rainbows hat comes from the 1986 Winter Omnibook issue of Crochet World. This issue has a lot of very interesting patterns that I need to share before I show you the hat I made from the magazine. First we have a mouse that dispenses toilet paper while holding cheese. Kind of cute but is this sanitary? Is the mouse washable?  Next we have a nativity set. At first I thought Mary had blonde hair in the photo but after checking the pattern they skip giving her hair and give her a veil instead. Joseph has a dark beard but the way the photo is taken it looks a little like a skull and is giving the whole scene zombie vibes.  The Crochet World magazines had a lot of Barbie and Ken clothing in the 1980s and this is an excellent example of one. Ken obviously skis and must have his very own, fashionable ski suit.  Other patterns not pictured include;
And now the Clouds and Rainbows hat. I knew I wanted to make this the moment I saw it. I was so confused about how that would stay on and if it would really turn out like the photo.  This uses worsted weight yarn and an I hook. I used Lion Brand Basic Stitch which I think of as a lighter weight worsted. They give a gauge that I matched perfectly in the white part of the hat with the recommended hook. The size is given as Misses and there's a note; "This pattern is recommend for experienced crocheters. With a little help beginners can also work this pattern." The note is accurate but maybe not for the reasons you would normally think. The pattern and stitches aren't that hard but the directions assume you have experience crocheting and can read into the directions to get the parts they chose to leave out. The hat is done in the round and the white part is all half double crochets that you join at the end of each round. Here's where I think the beginner would have difficulty.  Round two (and throughout the pattern) misses the chain two to start each round or maybe they think you don't need that part and it will be fine. I did the chain two at the beginning of each round. It's nice that they give you a stitch count to make sure you're increasing the right amount. In fact, they're pretty clear about how to increase the rounds right up until round 16 where they tell you to increase by 12 stitches evenly instead of the nine you had been increasing. Round 17 is a round of shells, Round 18 is a color round that is mostly single crochet stitches. Round 19-22 it says to continue in pattern and while it's obvious to me that the "pattern" is round 17-18 that may not be obvious to a beginner. It's not that hard to write something like; repeat round 17 and 18 twice. Rounds 23-29 repeat the "pattern" while increasing the size of the shells. It ends with a pompon (I skipped the pom). This was fast to make but it doesn't fit.
I know you're saying, "What if you just folded the brim up?" Aside from the fact that it hides the rainbow part, it's still too big. Notice that I didn't sew that last end in. I'm going to rip it out. I did sew in the color ends so hopefully it's not too much work.  I expected this hat to be weird but didn't expect it to be so big. This gets zero stars since I'm ripping it out.
This is the last hat of the year! Next week I'll wrap up with a post on the best and worst hats of the year. This is a post about hats that didn't work. I was definitely in a mood when I pulled this booklet out and started figuring out what I wanted to make. I tried several patterns in this booklet and either they didn't work out well or I was bored with the pattern.  The booklet has 27 patterns or sets. Two are Tunisian crochet, and another 10 are regular crochet. I tried three of the regular crochet patterns. I had bulky yarn so I thought I'd try this one:  So boring. I think this would have been fine, but I'd already made hats similar to this and it seemed like it was going to be pretty boring. It's a rectangle that you seam up and then gather at the top. Yawn. On to the next pattern. This one seemed different than the other hats I've done and used bulky yarn and a K hook.  Maybe some day with the right yarn, but probably not. I started it and somewhere around round four things didn't quite line up. I probably could have figured it out but my patience was low that day and I realized that not only was the pattern frustrating but I also didn't like the yarn I was using for this project. I ripped it out. For my last try from the booklet, I thought I'd try this cute popcorn hat. I really thought this one would be ok but about a quarter of the through using an E hook with Red Heart Super Saver my hands said nope!  popcorn hell I didn't try any of the other seven crochet hats for various reasons. This first set are the hats that seemed like they would be really boring to make:
This second set had several different issues. I didn't have the yarn for the first one. I didn't love the braid on the second one. The third holds together two strands of sport weight yarn and I don't like doing that and I'm not sure I had enough yarn for this hat in that weight.
Last is the granny square hat. This didn't look like it fit quite right so I wasn't willing to risk the time, yarn and sewing ends in for it.  Next week I will have one last hat and then I'll start wrapping the year of the hat up and planning for next year.
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