I’ve seen these little balls of yarn with a hat topper before and been tempted to figure out how to make an adult hat from these mini yarn kits (I can recall an unicorn that almost came home with me a couple years ago!). And when I saw the Sesame Street yarns at Joann Fabrics a couple weeks ago, the idea of an Oscar the Grouch hat was too much fun too pass up. The result of this experiment is the Grown Up Grouch, a knitting pattern for an adult-sized beanie. You can download the pattern by clicking the buttons at the top and bottom of this post, or on the free patterns page.
These little balls have less than 100 yards of worsted weight yarn. The Sesame Street One Hat Wonder has 95 yards (used for the Oscar hat) and the DMC Top This balls come with 98 yards. Both of those are enough to make a pretty generously child-sized hat, but that’s just a bit less than what you need for a comfortable adult hat. I figured that by adding a coordinating yarn, I could make adult sized hats from these hat topper and yarn sets.
I picked up the Oscar the Grouch one hat wonder and found a coordinating green at JoAnn Fabric’s. I ended up with the Big Twist Value Yarn in light green as that green compliments the Oscar yarn nicely. I used the solid green to knit a deep brim and then used the variegated Oscar colorway to knit the rest of the hat in a chevron pattern. This hat takes almost 50 yards for the brim and I used about 90 yards of the Sesame Street yarn.
The result is a lot of fun. And that’s all this is intended to be: fun. You could use the pattern for both the Lion Brand and DMC kits with the hat toppers, or you could use this pattern with any variegated yarn and coordinating solid. While the Lion Brand yarn is all variegated, the DMC hat topper yarns does have more of a striping effect with solid and variegated sections . I think the DMC yarn would look really lovely in this chevron pattern.
I will note that the Value Twist yarn does feel fairly soft but I wasn’t thrilled with the texture of the Lion Brand yarn. I did put the hat through a wash cycle and then dried it in the dryer for a few minutes before laying it flat to air dry. Please note that while I’m really pleased with the results of machine washing and drying, I did this before adding the Oscar hat topper and Lion Brand recommends laying flat to dry after washing.
This free pattern can be downloaded using the buttons at the top or bottom of this page, or on the free patterns page. As always, I’d love to see your projects – please tag me (@knitmckinley on instagram) or use the #knitmckinley hashtag on instagram.
Happy Knitting!
~Kara