I love Jenna Wingate’s stash-busters hat pattern and had wanted to make five of them to send to a cousin of mine who is working to help provide a better Christmas to a family in the community where she lives, but then the reality of the time remaining between now and when the hats need to be there asserted itself, and I had to change my plan.

I started by looking through hat patterns for children at Ravelry and came across Valerie Whitten’s (aka Vallieskids) adorable Jayde Hat design.

Using a 5.0 mm hook (I crochet much more loosely than the designer) and the remnants of a skein of Red Heart Super Saver grape fizz, I got to work.

Ninety minutes and two ends to weave in later, I had finished work on this hat:

which I hope will be just the thing for an 8-year-old girl.

Then, unwilling to let the start of a stash-busters hat go to waste, I decided to finish what I had started, using the base color for every other row of stitches which reduced the number of ends to be woven in by half, and in less time than my previous efforts, I had a finished hat:

which I am hoping will be exactly the sort of hat an 8-year-old boy would want.

Still three hats shy of my goal, I then turned to Kristin Hankins’ Turkey Hat pattern for inspiration. Ms. Hankins provides a wide variety of size options, and I used her hat instructions as the basis to make this pink hat for a toddler girl:

and this blue-hat-to-be for a toddler boy:

Tomorrow will be a new day, and with a little luck and some perseverance, I just might reach my five hat goal.

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