Given that focus of my knitting business is kids’ hats, I’m always trying to keep up with the latest trends in their little world. Over the past year I think we all know what that has been – Frozen! Frozen mania has taken over the world. It’s no different for the all the little kids I know. With Christmas around the corner I started perusing Ravelry for patterns based on a Frozen theme. The first thing I found were these adorable Anna and Elsa dolls – the pattern is free so I thought I would give it a whirl.
One of the most important things to me on projects like this is to the get the coloring right. The number of projects I see on Ravelry or Etsy or Pinterest where the crafter has just not used the correct colors. It makes such a huge difference. I know it can be a real pain to try and match colors but it’s really worth the time and effort. KnitPicks is great for color work like this because they have so many colors in very affordable yarns. I ordered a bunch of yarn and got started. I shared a picture on my Facebook page and the reaction was all the Frozen mania you would expect. One of my friends did not even know what it was but wanted two.
This all leads to the biggest problem – trademark issues. In my post I was careful to say they were not for sale and I was experimenting. All of which was true at the time. I had recently seen an article (which I can’t find now) that Disney was cracking down on Etsy sellers who had Disney themed products for sale. Being a lawyer, I totally understand the trademark issues involved here. However, part of me thinks none of this is hurting Disney and maybe they should worry about more important things but I like to be a law abiding citizen so I’m careful with what I sell and how I market those things.
Once my bundle of carefully chosen yarn colors arrived I set off to work. In the end, I did enjoy the finished project. I love the way the pattern was written and the dolls turn inside out so they have their ball gowns on one side and their winter wear on the other. My big problem with this type of project is making the faces. I’m terrible at the face making part and if you can’t get the faces right it doesn’t really matter how good the rest of it works. These are going to be Christmas presents for my friend’s daughter. She’s an easy going girl and won’t be bothered by the weird faces!
After this, I gave up on the frigid princess knit items, until, I got a request from a friend. Her daughters are dressing as Anna and Elsa for Halloween. She did not want to buy them the wigs for sale in the stores and had found some cute knitted hats on Pinterest and was wondering if I could recreate those. So, I set off on another frigid journey. I still had the blue from the dolls for the Elsa like hat. I’m much more pleased at the outcome of these hats.
I found a pattern for a crown hat for newborns that I was able to size up for the 4 year old who would be getting the hat. The interesting thing about this pattern was it was written for magic loop and I despite magic loop with all my being. I’m a dpn girl through and through. Ordinarily this difference does not matter but in this case, the hat is constructed inside out so you are purling the entire hat and that is tiresome on dpns and creates almost unavoidable jags when the decreases start. I knew there had to be a way to knit this hat (without grafting it to the crown later). I stopped in my LYS yesterday with this exact burning question – how do I flip this hat so I can knit it? Turns out the answer is to make a mistake we all probably made when learning how to knit on circular needles – flip the direction. It’s amazing how hard it is to make that mistake when you are trying to do it. I definitely remember realizing halfway up a hat that I had knit it the other way and being utterly at a loss for how it happened. I cast on the new hat today and am happily knitting it up – no grafting, no purling and boy, it is going faster! So this is how my frigid princess hats turned out!
I think the girls will look adorable and will have nice warm heads which is important where we live!!
jenknittingaround 