Fish hat - alive

It's fun having a nephew that I can make silly projects for!

Two years ago I crocheted a Monster Hat for my nephew.  When I made the hat, I had no idea if he would like it or not and I was very happy to hear that he loooooves the hat.  It has had a lot of hard wear over the last few years and unfortunately it shows.  Granted I did not use nice yarn (why, or why?!?) and it also did not help that his last year's winter coat had some velcro around the collar (!!) which helped shred the hat as well.  I have to say that I was impressed that the hat is still in one piece and all the spikes, eye and teeth are still attached.  While finishing the hat, I commented to my husband that I will be surprised if the teeth last a season.  I need not have worried!  Regardless of why, it looks kind of scruffy, and it's my duty as an aunt to make him another silly hat:)  The way I see it, is that his grandmothers can make respectable serious hats!

I don't think I will be able to match the monster hat, so I was looking for a completely different (but equally silly!) pattern.  Once I stumbled on the fish hat - dead or alive (through Ravelry), my husband I both agreed it was a winner.  I had initially planned to make a dead fish hat in Nemo colors, since orange is still his favorite color.  As I finished the hat and had to decide on the eyes, I realized that I don't want to scar him with a dead Nemo.  He may still be too young for that.

Having learned my lesson from the monster hat, I made sure to buy 100% wool yarn for this project.  Hopefully it will hold up better.  Unfortunately when I went to buy the yarn, the store was out of 100% wool black yarn, so I used Lion Brand Wool-Ease for the black stripes.  I was disappointed that they had no brighter orange except for really unappealing synthetic yarn.  When I started the fish I still thought I would make a dead fish hat, so my husband joked that once Nemo died, his color was less vibrant.  Morbid, I know.  Since this particular Nemo hat is quite alive and well, I don't really have an explanation for why his color is kind of muted...

Working notes:

• Pattern is extremely well written and easy to follow as you would expect from a Knitty pattern
• I was worried about the short row shaping for the head, but it was so well written out that you could blindly follow the pattern and have no problems.  It does bother me when I blindly follow a pattern without really understanding the construction, but since I was knitting on a deadline I had to let it go.  I did notice my short rows were much looser in tension, so my poor Nemo has a puffy face!
• This was the first time I tried to alternate colors while knitting in the round and it shows.  I tried to do the ladder-less knitting and managed to create a big hole instead.  In the first stripe I also tried to carry yarn up without cutting it off and decided against it for later stripes.  The later stripes were all thicker as well.

Inside view showing the ladder that formed when alternating colors

• The dead fish hat has its own website with the original tail.  I had initially wanted to make the original tail, but after researching images of Nemo, I think the the tail provided in Knitty's instructions is more true to life.  Plus it was shorter/easier to make and I was running short on time:)

Nemo tail!

• I did not center the dorsal fin properly so my Nemo is also lop-sided:(
• the side fins are equally spaced from the dorsal fin

You can really see Nemo's puffy face from this angle.  

You can also kind of see that the dorsal fin is off center.

• The eyes are made of white felt with embroidered pupils.  I had thought of making the eyes similar to the shark hoodie (all in felt), but was running out of time.  Plus, one garment with sparkly eyes is enough:)

I thought about making the eyes only black, but looking at images of Nemo, he has huge eyes with small pupils.  I tried to replicate that, but my Nemo looks more crazed than cute!

All in all, it was a very fun project to make and I tried out a few new techniques as well.  I hope he wears it half as much as the monster hat!