"No Power in the 'Verse is gonna stop me from finishing this hat...!"

 

Those of you who get to know me will know of my love for all things geeky. One of the major reasons I wanted to learn to crochet was to make geeky things and there's nothing geekier than a geek hat. 

As a long-time fan of Firefly (yeah I know, Whedon's a piece of trash but let's not get into that here!) I wanted to crochet one of these "Cobb Hats" for a long time - and had no idea just how frickin' complicated it would be and how long it would take. 

Normally on a good day, an Amigurumi project could take a few hours from start to finish. This hat I would say took around 10-15 hours, purely because it's a LOT of DC (Double Crochet) and a lot of switching between the front and the back loops in each row. The body of the hat consisted of 18 rows yellow, 13 row orange, with added fiery earflaps of doom and little plaits (in the photo I'd only done one earflap because my hands were killing me so had to stop for a while - but wanted a 'work in progress' pic. 

It's now finished, with a rough-ass lookin' pompom on top. Haven't taken any pics of the finished version yet but (predictably) both my wife and daughter absolutely hated the very bones of the thing once I'd finished it, and swore they'd never go out in public with me wearing it. Which is fine because of all the pieces I've crocheted so far, this is the one that's had the most offers of money for it so I might have to send it off to a more deserving home. 

Details: 

Pattern used - A freebie from Ravelry by April Draven - here's her Blog: http://aprildraven.blogspot.com/2015/09/jayne-cobb-inspired-hat-free-pattern.html

Yarn used: Paintbox Simply Aran 100g / 3.5 oz in Gold, Stylecraft  in Tomato and some odd scraps of fire engine red for the earflaps / plaits

Best thing about this pattern: Very easy to follow, only really need to know a couple of stitches. Does a proper job of sealing up the 'loop' of the hat as you go, rather than getting you to sew a big ugly seam down the back once done. Looks VERY much like Cobb's hat (though his earflaps were the same orange colour as the lower body of the hat).

Worst things about this pattern: The hat is a bit on the BIG side, even for a big head like mine. No instructions on how to 'close up' the top (I used four rows of stitches in a rough cross because I have no idea how to make a drawstring to close up), no instructions for the pom pom (easy enough to find some on the internet though). No instructions on how to make the plaits (I just doubled up a row of chain stitches, around 22 long)