Caps, Hats and Helmets - 1978 Earflap Hat

October Workbasket Magazines (at least the ones I have) were surprisingly light on hat patterns. The patterns they did have were ones that seemed really boring or were for babies so I decided I would just keep on making the hats in the same booklet I used for September.

​This week we have the Crocheted Hat with Earflaps. This is the fifth one out of the book. The first three scored high but last weeks ski-mask let me down a little. This week's hat is a little more complicated but not over the top difficult.

This pattern uses worsted weight yarn in three colors. The pattern gives the amount you need as weights: one ounce of gray and a half ounce each of rust and ecru. I weighed some scraps I had to make sure I had enough of each color. I used sky blue instead of gray, dark blue instead of rust and cream for the last color. I matched the gauge given with the recommended G hook.

This is worked top down with the edging done at the end and the (short) ties done separately.

Overall I didn't think this was a difficult pattern but I had few problems. I know I should over estimate the yarn I need but they gave such specific amounts and I wanted to trust them but I ran out of cream yarn so one of the earflaps has a slightly different cream color. 

The next problem is the fit. This was really tight on my head and if I pulled it down to try to mimic the leaflet photo it completely covered my eyes. If I left it above my eyes like the photos below there was a lot of extra space on top of my head. I'm not wearing my glasses in the photo and it isn't because I thought it would look better; it's because I couldn't get them on under the hat.

If you look at the magazine photo at the top of the post, it looks like the ear flaps are really far forward and I wondered if they were really covering her ears. The ear flaps are equidistant from each other and probably should have had a little more space in the front. The hat also looks like there's space on top of the model's head too. 

I actually tried to pull it down to be more like the magazine photo and the ties broke off. The ties were done separately and then sewed on with the yarn and I didn't do a great job of getting them secured. That was the last straw on this hat. It went straight into the garbage.

I'm giving this 1 out of 5 stars. The directions were fine but it doesn't fit. The fit is a little odd in general and their estimate of the yarn required is a little off in the wrong direction.