We spent Sunday dragging out both the interior and exterior Halloween decorations, including a full graveyard with fence and our revamped witch silhouette. We have our outdoor decorations up and perhaps excessively electrified, so much so that we found several neighbors standing and staring in front of our house later that night. The rest of the house is decked out, and just when I was wondering if all these decorations were worth a full day’s effort, the neighborhood kids went absolutely bananas. Nothing like squeals of “How cools is that?!?” to remind us why we are those crazy holiday people. We still have a few finishing touches to accomplish, but I am thrilled that we made my October 1st goal.

Meanwhile, I whipped up a quick gift for G-man that will be tucked into his stocking. It’s a basic ribbed hat with colors inspired by The Legend of Zelda, G-man’s favorite video game. I tend to stick with quick, basic knits for the boys, because as middle schoolers, their tendency to misplace things is legendary. No need to add any more angst to already overly angsty kids. Don’t let the pic fool you, as Bear is the model since this is a gift. He’s much smaller than G-man, which means this hat will fit him like a proper beanie.

Pattern: Hot Head from the Stitch & Bitch book, size medium

Yarn: The green and brown are Bernat Softee Chunky while the yellow is Loops & Threads Charisma

Needles: 10 1/2, both circular and DPN for crown decreases

Notes: Modified pattern to knit in the round instead of flat/seamed. Only used three colors instead of four, so stripe placement was random to my preferences, using the stripe key as a guideline. Only light steam blocking as the pattern’s negative ease doesn’t really require much.