Baby Yoda

One of my best friends in Japan is preggers!! I'm so super excited for her. She found out last week that she's having a boy. Awwww...I can't wait!

Right around the same time that she found out it is a boy, we mailed a few funny Halloween costumes for next year back and forth. A lobster in a pail, a lawn gnome, you know, classics. I'd sent her a baby Yoda photo and she mailed back that the ears/hat were too cute.

It just so happened that we would be meeting this past Sunday for her birthday. While a standard pressie would be a nice bottle of champers, being pregnant, that wouldn't work. I'd decided a while back that I'd get her a Chanel nail polish - something completely frivolous, yet useful all at once.

Then on Sunday morning, a stroke of brilliance hit! "I'll make a Yoda hat for her baby boy!!" We went out to some airplane/train event for K on Sunday around 11 and I bought some green yarn on the way. K wanted to sit with me on the train, so I couldn't get going on the hat. With a limited amount of time, I was dying to get started.

On the way home from our morning outing to the airport, I finally got cracking.

I used the same pattern that I'd made the butterfly hat from. Instead of the butterfly bit however, I just kept circling on with double crochets. I started with the newborn size, but it looked too teeny, so I added an extra increasing row from the 3 month pattern. Maybe my yarn was on the thin side? Perhaps I was pulling too tight due to the stress of working on a deadline?

By the time we'd arrived home, the hat was halfway done, but I totally needed a nap before heading out for the night. The second we stepped on the train for the 45 minute ride downtown, I was a crocheting queen! I finished the hat quickly and then moved onto the ears. With no pattern, I looked at a photo of Yoda and started cracking.

As I was in such a rush, I have NO photos of the making of the hat, aside from this gem of me sewing an ear on while waiting for the light to turn so we could cross the street downtown.

I sewed the final ear on while waiting for the Chanel woman to ring me up. I don't think I am meant to take photos inside the Chanel shop, but I was so excited that I'd finished in time that I snuck a photo of the hat on a make-up seat. Shhh!!

I think* I did this to make the ears (make two):
R1. Chain 3.
R2. 2sc, skipping the first chain. Ch1. Flip.
R3. 2sc. Ch1. Flip.
R4. 2sc in each sc (now you have 4sc). Ch1. Flip.
R5-7. 4sc. Ch1. Flip.
R8. 3sc. 2sc in final sc. Ch1. Flip (now you have 5sc).
R9-11. 5sc. Ch1. Flip.
R12. 4sc. 2sc in final sc. Ch1. Flip (now you have 6sc - make sure the increase is on the same edge as the previous one).
R13-16. 6sc. Ch1. Flip.
Edging: Right side facing, reverse single crochet around the long edges of the ears.
Sew ears to the bottom of the hat with the flat edge on top.

*Seriously, I have no idea what I did as I was doing it so quickly to just get it done. But I am pretty sure it went something like that.

A few weeks ago, my friend mentioned that she's not big on crocheted/knitted things for babies. I told her that it was cool if it never graces her baby's head as it was totally worth making to see her reaction when opening it. She responded with, "there's knit stuff and then there are Yoda ears...they WILL be worn." Yay!!