Hook’d: Navy Brimmed Slouchy

Do you crochet? If you do, then Ravelry is the most awesome website you could ever have found! I remember when I first discovered it’s existence last September and thinking, where have you been all my life? And there are thousands and thousands of free and ready to purchase patterns for crocheters and knitters!!! It’s like our version of a candy store!! There’s even a yarn database so you can even covet more yarn than you ever possible dreamed of owning!

Ravelry is where I found the very easy to follow and reasonably priced patterns of ScarFanatic on Ravelry (as well as Etsy, where she sells her finished objects). She presently has 31 designs available on Ravelry for purchase, which showcase a variety of different styled hats and jewellery. 

For my particular project, I choose the “Brimmed Crochet Slouch Hat” for 2 main reasons – it was a slouchy and it had a brim. Sold to the locs-wearing, sun-hiding Bajan woman in the glasses whose hair was well in need of a relock and she had lots of places to go! 

Now, ScarFanatic recommends using hook I (5.5. mm) with 10 ply worsted weight yarn. Silly Abbey choose to use hook H (5.0 mm) with 10 ply aran weight yarn. So of course, my hat came out just a tad smaller than the pattern pic.

Ooh look! You can see all the locs fuzzy new growth goodness just above my ears! Yay! The pattern was very simple to follow and I was able to watch some tv while doing this. I had thought the brim was going to be tricky but Nazli’s instructions were great and I got the brim done without having any unpicking to do.

In all, I’d say it took me about 2 hours to complete and that’s mostly due to the frozen moments that often occur when you’re watching tv and some sort of unexpected or mind-blowing action is taking place. Hey, I was trying to finish watching season 7 of Criminal Minds!

Now, ScarFanatic awesome lady that she clearly has to be, was very sweet in thanking me for putting my finished project up on Ravelry. She was even nicer in gently suggesting to use cotton yarn next time so the hat would look and slouch better. But we don’t get those gorgeous big rolls of cotton yarn here in Barbados, so I’ll have to make my second attempt at this pattern when I come back from vacation.

What’s your favourite type of item to crochet? Jewellery and hats get my vote!

UPDATE 2013/01/14: Due to numerous copyright infringement challenges, ScarFanatic no longer has her patterns available for sale on Etsy or Ravelry, but you can still buy finished products on Etsy.