Diamond Flower Hat

Post number 2 for today is done, and faster than I thought.  It didn't take as much doing to figure out what had happened with the pattern as I thought it would.  It looks like I accidentally stuck in a bit from another pattern that I'm working on but it's all better now.  I missed one week because of Faire, I am NOT going to let Easter and it's wonderfully amazing candy hijack a second week.   Plus I have some Halloween props that are going really well and will have to post them soon.  Not all at once though, I figured I should trot out some patterns first.  I'll do my best to be even handed with the pattern vs. prop making posts.  On the prop scene, I've found a really awesome blog that both inspires me and makes me feel woefully inadequate when it comes to my props.  If you're into awesome props and crazy epic Halloween decorations you need to go see Dave Lowe's blog.  Seriously.  Do it.  It's a good idea.  The guy is freaking amazing and most of his stuff is made from parts that are super cheap or things you'd have around the house or both.

Moving back into the pattern making realm, I have yet another movie watching hat for you.  Not for movie watching, mind you, but rather made while watching a movie.  I made this one while watching Rango (2011) which I really enjoyed.  It is nothing like a kids movie, despite being animated.  I haven't laughed that hard in a while.  I totally understand why it won Best Animated Feature.  I'm glad I noticed that it was playing; not only is a good movie but it also got my mind of the other movie I had watched that day.

The movie in question was Charly (1968) which was the movie version of Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes.  I had been watching it while working on some of my other crafting projects and it made me rather angry.  Cliff Robertson, who played the title character, got Best Actor that year which, having finally seen it, I now think is complete and utter bunk.  Not that he didn't do a good job, but I don't think his performance was anything like as riveting/dramatic/amazing/captivating (I could go on) as Peter O'Toole's Henry II from The Lion in Winter.  Wikipedia suggests that many voting Academy members said after the fact that Robertson won more on publicity which is both mollifying and infuriating.  I think O'Toole got robbed that year.  I've seen most of the other films with a Best Actor nomination from 1969 and I don't think any of those leading men were as good as O'Toole.  His banter with Katherine Hepburn (who got Best Actress for her Eleanor of Aquitaine, btw) in that one was quite possibly the most amazing I've ever seen.  You just don't get interplay like that anymore.  Even the banter between Johnny Depp and Geoffrey Rush as Captains Jack and Barbossa doesn't come close and it was done really well.

Right, enough movie ramblings.  This particular hat is something of a prototype.  I was playing with how to make motifs in interesting places without much connecting them and this is what I came up with.  It has given me some ideas which will undoubtedly pop up somewhere in my next few hats.  We'll see how that goes.  For now, you get this one.  It's a bit different from some of the others I've made recently in that the crown is on the small side for the style.  That was intentional, as it happens, because you can see the pattern in the hat better if it is less floppy.  I'm not entirely certain I like the brim, but that's what I came up with.


Diamond Flower Hat

Fits a 22 inch head comfortably.

Materials:
I hook
90 yards Vanna's Choice in Aqua

Notes:  The first 3dc cluster on each round starts with ch2 then 2dc.  Work this way throughout.


Dc decreases:  In this pattern I talk about making 3 and 4 dc decreases.  What I mean by this is to start like you're going to make a dc but then stop before you get to the final pull through two loops.  Instead move on, leaving those two loops on the hook, and do however many more partial dc's to get the number I indicated and then pulling through all the loops on your hook at once.

Pattern:
ch 4 and join in a ring.
Round 1:  (3dc cl, ch1) 5 times.  Join and turn.
Round 2:  In the ch 1 sp from the previous round, (3dc, ch5) around.  Join but do not turn.
Round 3:  3dc in join, 3dc in 3rd dc of the previous round, ch5.  (3dc in both the 1st and 3rd dc of the cluster from the previous round, ch5) 4 times.  Join but do not turn.
Round 4:  Ch2.  Make a 4 dc decrease over each group of 2 clusters from the previous round then ch 10.  Repeat 4 more times.   Join but do not turn.  The decrease is what gives you the other part of the diamond shape.
Round 5:  (3dc, ch5) in the top of each decrease and in each ch 10 space around.  Join but do not turn.  You will have the start of 10 diamonds at this point.
Round 6:  Repeat Round 3.  You will be working over 10 clusters instead of 5.
Round 7:  Repeat Round 4.   Join but do not turn.

Round 8:  Repeat Round 5.  This time you will have 19 clusters. (I'm not sure how or why it came out at 19, if you end up with 20 just roll with it.)

Round 9:  Ch 2, 3dc in the next st, 1 dc.  Sc in the ch5 space.  Repeat around using a dc in place of the ch 2 for the remaining 18 diamonds.  Join, do not turn.

Round 10: Ch2.  Make a 3 dc (the ch2 counts as the first dc) decrease over each 5 dc group from the previous round then ch 1 before moving to the next group. Join, do not turn.
You should now have 3 sets of completed diamonds.  The first set has 5, the second has 10, the third has 19

Round 11: Sc around in the tops of the decreases and in the ch 1 spaces.  Join and turn.

Round 12:  Sc around.  Join and turn.
Round 13:  Sc around.  Join and break off.  Weave in ends