I saw this picture on Pinterest when I first started pinning and fell in love with the Raccoon hat. I used it as my inspiration for Luke’s new winter hat. Claire from Moth and Sparrow has a full tutorial on her blog to make these hats.

I do love these hats so much. But I am so new to sewing with knits. I just haven’t had much practice and everything I sew turns out wrinkly. Also I wasn’t so sure if a jersey hat would be warm enough in Chicago in the winter. So I set out to create one with my knitting needles.

This is what I came up with:

I started knitting in the round with a rib design for roughly an inch and then started alternating my two colors to make wide stripes.  When I got to the top teal stripe I started decreasing the middle evenly spaced from the outer edges. You can see the decreasing looks like to diagonal lines pointing toward the middle.  I did this so it wouldn’t just be a rectangle and instead would fit his head a bit better along with giving me the illusion of ears.

Once I finished that last stripe, making it two rows taller than the previous stripes, I bound of my knitting and carefully pinned the hat flat matching the decrease points and the sides. I then machine stitched straight across the top on the inside of the hat.  I then turned it right side out to make sure I caught all the edges and the shape was working. I then machine stitched one more row next to the previous for extra stability.

I cut out a black Raccoon Mask  and two little gray eyes from wool felt  and handstitched them to the front of the hat. And ta-da! Finished.

It was late last night after Luke was in bed when I finished, and I would never do this, but I really wanted to wake Luke up to try it on. :)

So we did that first thing this morning on the way out the door. I distracted him with my cell phone and he kept in on for a few minutes before he discovered it and promptly snatched it off.  I may have to add some sort of straps to button or tie it under his chin if he doesn’t learn to keep hats on by the cold weather.

I am smitten, of course with the little man, but of him in this hat. oh my the cuteness. ;)

So that’s my masked little bandit this fall.

I am contemplating making him a Raccoon for Halloween and making a costume to go with this hat. What do you guys think?

Thanks for stopping by!