Lemonhead Hat

So this started as just a single project for a friend's 18th birthday present but then just spiralled out of control thanks to me having a fair bit of free time on my hands. This project was mainly done during my VCE exam period whenever I took a break from studying. Half my family getting COVID left me isolated in my room and in need of a project to keep myself busy and to destress.

The main part of this project was the lemon bucket hat, inspired by my friend's love of (you guessed it) lemons and bucket hats. Because I couldn't really leave the house, I was limited to supplies that I had on hand, and there was definitely a bit of yarn chicken going on as I neared the end of the skein, but in the end, I made it (just)! Because the only yellow yarn I had was 8-ply (light worsted), I had to somewhat make up my own pattern which I based on the pattern in this video. Below is the pattern that I ended up using.

Hat Pattern

Bucket Hat (8-ply yarn, size J hook)

- Row 1: 6 dc into magic ring (6)

- Row 2: 2 dc in each opening (12)

- Row 3: 1 dc, second opening increase (18)

- Row 4: 2 dc, third opening increase (24)

- Row 5: 3 dc, fourth opening increase (30)

- Row 6: 4 dc, fifth opening increase (36)

- Row 7: 5 dc, sixth opening increase (42)

- Row 8: 6 dc, seventh opening increase (48)

- Row 9: 7 dc, eighth opening increase (54)

- Row 10: 8 dc, ninth opening increase (60)

- Row 11: 9 dc, tenth opening increase (66)

- Row 12: 10 dc, eleventh opening increase (72)

- Row 13: 11 dc, twelfth opening increase (78)

- Row 14: 12 dc, thirteenth opening increase (84)

- Row 15: 13 dc, fourteenth opening increase (90)

- Row 16: 14 dc, fifteenth opening increase (96)

- Rows 17-34: dc, no increase (96)

- Row 35: 4 dc, fifth opening increase (115)

- Row 36: 10 dc, eleventh opening increase (125)

- Row 37: 3 dc, fourth opening increase (156)

- Rows 38-39: dc, no increase (156)

- Row 40: 9 dc, tenth opening increase (171)

- Rows 41-42: dc, no increase (171)

Stem (8-ply yarn, size I hook)

- Row 1: 6 dc into magic ring (6)

- Rows 2-5: dc, no increase (6)

Leaves (8-ply yarn, size H hook)

- Pattern

Making the hat

Making the brim

Making the leaves

Anpanman

And here is where I started to go a bit

overboard. Said friend also really likes the Japanese cartoon character Anpanman and so I decided to make a mini amigurumi version by following a downsized version of this pattern. And THEN I decided to make a matching hat for Anpanman, which together might be the cutest things that I have ever made.

All in all, this was a really fun project and I am very glad that it gave me something to do that wasn't schoolwork.

The inspo song for this one has got to be the Anpanman theme song, given the direction that this project ended up taking.

Feel free to share!