Hi Friends, 

I love collaborating in the creative process! Getting creative with new individuals is one of the best ways I have to get to know new people and make friends. It also allows me to stretch my creative muscles by working within someone else’s idea box. 

Recently, I was able to collaborate with a young friend to design a new hat. Let’s refer to her as “Rose.” Rose is a spunky rock star with a tender heart, spirit for adventure, and mermaid toned hair. It was a joy to help her complete her design.

Rose had a reference photo, but also plenty of ideas of her own. She wanted to keep the color combinations, but that was about it. The ear flaps and tassels had to go. She also wasn’t thrilled with the shape of the ears.

Rather than working from scratch to design a hat to fit Rose’s ideas, I decided to tweak a hat pattern I had worked with previously. The Soft Comfort Crochet Hat by Salena Baca is available for free from the Yarnspirations pattern collection. The original pattern is sized for an adult and calls for Red Heart Soft Essentials yarn. That yarn’s bulky weight calls for a 6.5 mm crochet hook (US K-10.5). 

I substituted the Red Heart Soft Essentials for Red Heart Super Saver yarn. I chose the Saffron and Cherry Red colors, which I think matched the reference photo pretty well. With the lighter weight material, I downsized to a 5.5 mm crochet hook (US I-9). 

By substituting both the yarn material and hook size, the Soft Comfort Crochet Hat for Size 20” worked up in an ideal size for a child. I worked the pattern as directed, starting with the Saffron and changing to the Cherry Red for Rounds 10-14. Click Here to see the original pattern. 

I then created a pair of ears out of the Saffron, and sewed onto the hat to finish the look. I created the ears from my own pattern for mouse ears, which you can find in my blog post Animal Ears for Accessories. 

As you can see, Rose was happy with her final product! It was fun to collaborate with her to give her exactly what she had in mind, and I look forward to helping her complete her next design.