Crochet Cloche

...And here is the third hat I crocheted for Christmas.  This hat went to a 5 year old girl who is very much into pink and purple.

I had initially planned to use a different pattern and make this a true cloche.  I was running behind though and got hopelessly lost in the first few rows when I tried to follow the pattern.  I think it would have been much easier to follow if had been working in a solid color, but at that point, it was too late to go buy new yarn.

Instead I went with the monster hat pattern figuring it would be a good base for the hat.  Initially I had planned on adding a huge pom-pom on the top.  As I was completing the hat though, I realized that I could try to add a ruffle to turn it into a mini cloche.  After completing the hat per the pattern, I added two more rows.  The first row was 2 dc into each stitch and in the second row I simply made 1 dc into each stitch.  This added just a small amount of ruffle.  I had toyed with the idea of making the ruffle in half double crochet, but wasn't sure if that would be too much of a change in the texture.  I think using a "shorter" stitch would have made the ruffle slightly less floppy.  It is OK as is considering it is so short though.  No problems with the ruffle flopping over the eyes.  It's a good thing though that I stuck with only two rows.  If I had done a third row as I had thought about, the ruffle would have been too floppy.

Crocheted with Red Heart Soft.