Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Bird Dog Hunting Hat


Inspiration
:
I made this hat for my dad.  My dad really likes to hunt and thankfully he lives in rural Iowa and has plenty of ground to hunt on.  Deer hunting is his favorite and you can find him hunting most weekends in the fall - well, actually, you probably cannot find him, because he is somewhere deep in the timber immersing himself in nature and waiting for that next trophy buck to come along.  I thought about putting a big buck on a knitting hat, but even with my creativity, putting antlers on a hat was somewhat difficult (and who knows if you would even be able to tell they were antlers after the hat was made?).  Wow, typing this out, I just had an idea of how to make a deer with antlers...maybe next Christmas...
   
Anyway, back to the hat.  Dad also likes to hunt pheasants (although there are not many left where he lives) and I think he used to do some duck hunting in his younger days as well.  I designed Dad a hat with dog pointing at three flying ducks.  This hat reminded me of a painting we used to have in our basement and the bird dogs we had as children.  I am proud of my original design and I hope my dad likes it.


Making the hat:  I don't think I am going to write up a pattern for this hat, because it was pretty intricate and there are a lot of things I would do differently a second time around.  First off, there were several rows where I was constantly carrying the black yarn under the hat.  And as a rookie mistake, I did not wrap the yarn around the working yarn often enough, making the hat very tight when I was done.  I ended up having to cut the yarn behind the hat in some places and tie it together so that the hat would stretch and fit my dad's head.  That is why the hat is kind of bobbly in some places with the blue.  If I were doing this again, I would make the birds lower (maybe flying out of the grass) so that I wouldn't have to carry the black yarn so far without using it.  Also, the dog (while it looked like a dog when I charted the design) ended up with a longer neck than anticipated and I would fix that should I make this design again.  If you would like me to type a pattern of the hat, please submit a comment, and I will consider typing my notes into a pattern.
The Four "Thanksmas" Hats of 2012:
Knit Cat Hat for my niece
Football Fan Hat for my brother-in-law
 Pottery Knit Hat for my brother
 Bird Dog Hat for my dad

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