Three Penguin Hats - Revisited

Two years ago I knitted three hats with penguin charts and ear flaps. I even bought yellow and navy blue polar fleece for hat linings and then abandoned the whole affair. The hats had problems - the placement of the ear flaps on the first hat was wrong and gave too narrow an opening for the face. The tubular cast on was pulling the hat edge and did not look good with the fleece lining. The hats needed pompoms and embellishments. But the biggest stopper was the sewing of the linings. I had never sewed linings with ear flaps and was not sure how to design them and then the mere trouble of taking out the sewing machine and clearing some flat space for cutting out the fleece was sufficient to put me off for quite some time, like two years :)

So this last Saturday I took the hats out and repaired them. I undid the cast on edge of Gaby's hat and finished the raw stitches with I-cord. Added a big pom pom and plaits. Sewed yellow fleece lining and attached it to the hat, allowing for the yellow edge to form a contrasting contour to the hat.

My nephew's hat was the first one I knitted back then and I hadn't figured its ear flaps correctly. So I took out the entire lower part with the ear flaps and knitted it anew with the correct placement of the flaps and a wider opening for the face and again cast off the stitches with I-cord. For this hat I sewed a navy blue fleece lining and added a blue pompom.

This third hat happened by accident - it was meant for Gaby, but came out a bit small. Nevertheless I decided to finish it too, adding a yellow I-cord edge, yellow lining and a blue pompom. In the first picture above this hat is without the lining, as I initially planned to spare myself the trouble, but later today I decided to finish it properly like the other two and sewed and attached its fleece lining too.
I feel so satisfied having finished these hats and making them wearable. The blue hat will be posted to my nephew tomorrow, Gaby put on hers today for school and I only have to find a head to match the third hat :))))