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Hippo’s Ugly Hat

Quick post for now.  Wanted to share the result of a challenge I was given last winter.  This young lady (nicknamed Hippo) brought me this pink “novelty” yarn one day.  (it is so gross.  I flinch at the texture, and the colour hurts my eyes).  She challenged me to knit her something with it, and that she’d happily wear it.

I figured that my few hours of torment creating the garment would be surpassed by her many hours of wearing it in public.  So, here is a hat for Hippo.

Knit from gross pink lumpy acrylic yarn, and the blue edging and pompom is from a different novelty yarn called “bling”.

Thanks Hippo, for being brave enough to show your face in this ugly hat all over the internet!

I don’t particularly enjoy knitting with acrylic, or novelty yarn in general.  I don’t appreciate the furry/fuzzy/sparkly/glittery fakeness of this yarn.  I much prefer to knit with wool.  This project reminded me of how wonderful wool is…even if it is scratchy wool!

Do you know how to tell if a yarn is natural fiber or acrylic/polyester fiber?

Burn it!  Yes, you heard correctly.  Light a candle, and hold a strand of the yarn over the flame.  As the flame burns through the yarn, examine what happens to the burnt ends.  When it is cooled, touch the ends of the yarn

  • If it forms an ash, powdery and black, that crumbles and falls off easily it is a NATURAL fiber.  (The burning yarn will probably also STINK)
  • If it forms a glob that sticks to the end of the string, it is an ARTIFICIAL fiber.
  • It could be a combination of natural and artificial fiber, and the ash/glob will be somewhere between the two extremes.

I asked some children this very question of identifying the source of different yarns.  It was interesting;  they judged it purely on the colour of the yarn!  If it was green, or brown, or beige, they said it was natural.  If it was blue, or purple, or red, they said it was artificial.

We later tried the burn test, and they realized that they had previously been using faulty criteria!

I hope Hippo doesnt ever try to burn her hat.  It would end up as a big glob of goo!

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This entry was posted on Monday, November 23rd, 2009 at 10:26 pm and is filed under Art Every Day Blog Challenge, knitting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

  • karendelduce
    Hi Rachael, I did put an order in for the pattern for the Red Olympic mittens, and I do prefer NOT to use paypal I used it once, and I get spam from people trying to get me to verify my credit card information.

    I did used paypal again today, to get the pattern, but I didn't know if itwent through or not, and if not would you please contact me at my email address. Thank you.
  • I think the hat turned out very nice, especially considering how much you hated working with the yarn. How in the world did such a lovely young lady get the nickname of hippo?
  • normaschager
    Hippo (what a terrible nickname!) is so cute that she'd probably look good in anything, including this hat. And I don't think it's so ugly,either.
  • haha! i love that you created an ugly hat with this yarn. at least it was a fun project. :-)
  • Actually, I think I have seen uglier... I like the shape of the hat, and that's all down to your skill. So there :)

    Also, I'm with you about natural fibers. Some people say I'm a little bit picky -- but they don't complain when they receive something handmade from these wonderful yarns. Real linen, wool, silk, merino, cashmere, cotton. My absolute favorite is baby alpaca, and I'm kind of tempted to try the new eco-friendly yarns made of bamboo, milk, and corn, of all things. (I do avoid itchy wool, though. I was one of those children who felt tortured by it -- I could no more work with it than I could fly.)
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