I don’t know why Mr Maize has corn in his hat, but that’s how he wanted it. He would not let me rest until the corn was made manifest in knitting. Although he hears a lot of them, Mr Maize does not enjoy corny puns, so I will restrain myself here. Also, he thinks candy corn is gross. I beg to differ.

I did this one much like the Peapod. This time I created a larger area for the insert, carried it all the way to the bottom of the hat, then folded the extra stitches over the regular hat stitches and knitted them together as if to create a tuck on either side of the opening.

I worked the outer leaves separately, starting from a provisional cast on, then knitted them together with the last round of hat stitches before the brim. I overlapped the leaves tuck-fashion as well. I made the first leaf in stockinette, but it curled badly so I switched to 2x2 rib. I feel like the rib captures the corn leaf texture much better.

Knitted the corn insert in moss stitch on US4 needles with fingering weight held double to get the texture I wanted, then sewed it in place with mattress stitch. Originally I stuffed the corn, but that made the hat too voluminous. It’s still disproportionate, but it will do.

Worked the wide loopy beard from Gnoddy, then cut the loops into straight strands to suggest corn silk. I originally tried it with a silky embroidery thread, but that was just too effective. I wanted it to be realistic but not overly so. It’s a fantasy creature after all.

hat MC Peapod
outer leaves hat Grass

hat US 1
outer leaves hat US0

outer leaf: provisionally CO 22 sts
work 2-st garter border at each end, the rest in 2x2 rib
work straight 22 rows, then begin decreases
decrease at each edge every 4th row