Finished Object – Gift Knit – Bobble hat (with HUGE Pom-Pom)

This is a not surprise birthday present for a friend (although she doesn’t know it’s finished yet!). But she doesn’t get a lot of spare time so I might get away with her not knowing until I give it to her in a few weeks…..

This didn’t initially start out life as a birthday knit. Initially, I wanted an easy and transportable knit for our crafting evening (we try and do one weekly if we have the time). I re-found this book (Knitting with Giant Needles) during the move and it’s the first time I’ve knitted from it. It was given to me as a birthday present from my very awesome cousin last year, but still had no idea how to read patterns at that stage. There’s so really cool knits in here and I look forward to trying more from within the pages.

We got nattering (no surprise) and it turns out she wants a new hat and the wool matches colours she usually wears. So I now have a really exciting excuse to knit this really quickly (hence the lack of blogging this week) and make sure I do it really well on the first attempt at the pattern. It’s marked as ‘easy’ though. So nothing to worry about.

This initial pain in the arse was the ball of wall. For some reason the end of it was unravelling with the working end and they kept getting tangled. So I ended up having to unravel the ball and re-roll – a job for me during a lunch break at work this week.

As you can see, the hat is starting to shape up quickly as well. It’s just 6 lines on repeat, with the curved shape created by turns about 2/3rds of the way thought the row.

After a couple a nights hard knitting, I had something that was hat shaped 🙂 It fits me really well…. so I’m hoping it’s not too large for her head (mine is huge!)… I’m hoping it just fits because it’s stretchy.

The next part of this plan is to add the bobble onto the hat. I hate making bobbles…. it just takes such a long time (especially for the large ones). This one wanted a 12cm -5cm sized one – youch. I had no compass (that’s not made it over yet), so I made a makeshift one out of wool and a pen.

That worked pretty well. The bobble colour requested was purple glittery. But I quickly realised that a thin DK is not going to let me finish this pom-pom and let me keep my sanity.

So, I found some complementary coloured Aran wool and the remaining wool from the hat knit. Both were a bit more on the chunky side – making the pom-pom a slightly quicker task. What do you think of the multi-coloured pom-pom? It’s the first time I’ve done a mixed colour one (I spotted a tutorial on Facebook the other month and can’t find it again – sorry!). But I love the colour mix – even though it’s absolutely huge.

So this is a proper pic of the hat (taken by my husband, but modelled by me) with the Pom-Pom on. I do think the pom-pom looks more in proportion when on the hat on my head.

Question: Would you pom pom? Or would you not? Discuss….

I’ll definitely be planning one of these for myself. I’m thinking perhaps in light blue (the same as the top I was in earlier in the post) or bright read to match the wrist warmers. But that will have to wait until the birthday and Christmas gift knits get knitted….

Yay! More knitting!

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