Wild Rose Hat - McCall's Crochet It 1979

McCall's Crochet It has some really cute patterns and I'll do a profile of that magazine soon. One of my favorites is The Wild Rose Hat and since bucket hats are in again I thought I'd give this one a try. I've done some tapestry crochet before so this seemed doable.

The pattern materials are worsted weight yarn; 4 oz. of white, 2 oz. each of green and rose and a few yards of black, red and light red. I used Lion Brand Cotton Ease in Lunar Rock, Rosewood and Bay Leaf for the main colors and I found scraps for the black and other two reds that used very small amounts. The pattern uses a G hook and gives a gauge that I matched in the top of the hat. What this pattern doesn't have is a graph for the roses. It goes row by row telling you when to switch colors. 

This hat turned out fine but there are a few issues with the pattern. In the photo above, it tells you to carry along the colors not in use and this works well for most tapestry crochet because most tapestry crochet uses two colors per row or round. There were large sections of this that had three colors and at the centers of the flowers it was often 4 or 5 colors. You can't really carry that many strands under a stitch without messing up the gauge so I started letting the strands float. If I'd had a graph of the pattern I could have used yarn bobbins for the colors. Without that graph I wasn't sure how many bobbins I'd need vs how many yarn floats I'd have. You can see the messy floating yarn in the photo below. Even with floating the yarn, I cut and sewed in a lot of ends.

​The pattern had more increases in the front than in the back but when I look at the magazine photo it isn't as wavy. I could block this out so it doesn't do that but I think it's ok without it. 

I've worn it out in public and had several compliments on it. My husband thinks I should line the brim so you don't see the floating strands. I'd definitely make this again with some bobbins and make some adjustments in the increases on the brim. 

​I'm going to give this a 4 out of 5. It's pretty well written but would be better with a graph. It fits and it's cute. The brim is big enough to shade my eyes from the sun. It even semi-fashionable.