Finding the Right Guage Can Be Tricky!

For Christmas this year, as many other years, we were a little tight for money.  So I wanted to make some of my christmas gifts, and what better avenue than my new hobbie, crocheting. 
I wanted to make a hat for my neice, Leorah, and I had just recently finished knitting a hat for Gavin, my son.  I first went to my local WalMart and found some yarn that is a mixture of pinks and purple... what better colors for an almost 7 year old girl.  At my next oppurtunity (while Gavin was napping) I set to work.  However, I found that either the yarn that I was using was too small, or the needles were too big.  Either way it wasn't looking "right".  So I went online in search of another hat to crochet.  I knew I wanted to do one with earflaps (cause they are just too darn cute).    Finally I came across this pattern... http://angelscrochet.com/patterns/mountainpat.php   and started to crochet..... 

I must say, as a side note, here that I absolutely love crocheting, I think even more than I love (dare I say it...) scrapbooking and cardmaking (another of my hobbies).  I think it must be that it gets done so fast and at the end you actually have something that you can use.  <3

Here is a picture of the hat when it was almost done:

Now I have to say it took me a while to get this pattern right.  I first started out by making it as the pattern calls to do, but found as I neared Round 11 that it was way too big... way too big for my head in fact.   So, I started thinking of how I can fix it.  This is what I decided.. to take it out and use a smaller crochet hook.  So instead of using a 5.5mm hook I switched to a 3.5mm hook.  To my surprise it actually worked!!

My next challenge with this pattern came when I went to do the tassels.  As the pattern said, loop the strings of yarn through the bottom 3 stiches on the earflaps.  So in my mind I thought to just loop it through a few inches enough to then tie in the loose ends.. Well let me tell you that isn't what that means.. you try hiding 12 loose ends into an earflap! LOL...  So then about a day later, after contimplating on what to do with all these loose ends, the light bulb went off!!!  I was supposed to loop them half way through so that the yarn was in half ....kinda hard to explain...  Finally the finished product was complete. Yes my son is modeling it!  Doesn't he look lovely!!!?

However, about a week before Christmas my mom did help and sewed some white fleece to the inside of the hat.  Sorry no picture of that, but it will make the hat a lot warmer.  I love this pattern and may in the future do it again, maybe this time for myself!!!