Seriously, I nearly came unglued on someone who said the *wrong* thing about my child care situation. The college won't allow children into the art studios (and there are studios where safety is a big issue), so I can't take Cakes into school with me anymore (I would take her into the print studio with me since none of the presses were motorized and would have her do "her" art projects at a table while I did my work). No job = no money for babysitter (not to mention that it's about 45 min drive to campus). My time management isn't great (I get an amazing amount of housework and repairs done while trying to avoid a deadline), but when I say that I have a family emergency, respect it for what it is. Ok, rant over.
Now on to the happiness:
No, this isn't my pattern, but it's what I managed to make for the Cakes during finals week (she picked out the yarn and my finals were critiques, so my hands were -yay- free).
This pattern can be found on Ravelry or on Hand Crafting With Love website.
This is one of the few hats that I found that will fit my head (hairbands and stocking caps always seem to wiggle off & my DD has the same head-shape). The griddle stitch (a checker-board of SC & DC stitches) gives the hat quite a bit of elasticity. It's not really visible in the photo, but the bottom "cuff" is alternating front post and back post crochet which makes the hat feel really secure on my head.
It's a really simple pattern (SC, DC..), but the increases really trip me up (I have a bad habit of reading the wrong line). What I ended up doing with the pattern was copying and pasting it into Word and reformatting it. I do much better with charts than written instructions, so I put the paragraph-formatted instructions into short little lists.
from this:
Ch 1, turn. [sc in next dc, 2 dc in next sc, sc in next dc, dc in next sc] 3 times. sc in next dc, dc in next sc. Repeat from [ to ] 4 more times. sc in next dc, dc in next sc. sl st in first sc to join. (39 stitches)
to this:
Ch 1, turn
[sc in next dc, 2 dc in next sc, sc in next dc, dc in next sc] 3 times
sc in next dc, dc in next sc.
[sc in next dc, 2 dc in next sc, sc in next dc, dc in next sc] 4 times
sc in next dc, dc in next sc
sl st in first sc to join. (39 stitches)
It just works better for my brain and it made it easier to mark my spot with a small post-it. I have to say, this is the one thing that I really like about electronic format patterns - I can make adjustments to them for my own readability and annotate them as needed. I have a bad habit of marking up printed instructions and sketching out charts when the text really reads funny to me.
