Little Girl's Cloche Hat Russian pattern or 'Are you Putin me on?!?'

The cry for help echoed across the interwebs from 700 kms away.

My Auntie Horse Rescuer (yes, that's her real name) sent me a Facie message a few months ago asking if I could make a couple of these adorable little girls Cloche Hats for her granddaughters.

"No worries!" I replied and thought.

I'm not really a clothing/ accessory making crochet queen. But I can do it. The pictures have almost gone viral in the Crochet World. You can find links to these on Pinterest and other pinny interwebs places.  They are disgustingly gorgeous:

 If I were 4 I'd wear this!

Then I followed the links to the pattern.  It's poorly translated from RUSSIAN!!!!!  My brain nearly melted from trying to figure them out. The original pattern can be found here.

All dedicated crocheters usually are aware of crochet abbreviations so either ignore them at the top, or briefly scan to see if there's going to be anything extra fun like 'hdc'. 

But the abbreviations list of one of the patterns left me with a head scratcher:

"Abbreviations:
ce - Air loop
SS - connecting column
RLS - column without nakida
CH - column with nakida
C2H - column with 2 nakida
C3H - bar with 3 nakida"

Air loop is easy. It's a chain. But columns with or without nakida sounds like crazy talk.

But how's this for a line from the pattern:
" 2p. - In each of the previous row arches provyazyvaem 2 CH separated by 1 VP It turns 12 kb "Ticks"

 
So I gave it a red hot go for a week. Then I conceded defeat. I gave up.  I know, right?  

"Bloody stupid girly hats! " I thought. If you've read a couple of my little blurbs, you'd know I am the Mother of Boys. Which feels like saying I'm the Mother of Dragons. And sometimes when Sonofagun No.1 has the teenage hormones flowing through his body and is being a total stubborn, shithead pain in the arse, it feels like it.  But most of the time he's a tall, lanky, gorgeous manchild who's as sweet and funny as you'd want him to be. 

So I've never really tried making LITTLE GIRLY THINGS before.

Then just a few weeks later a Facie friend put up a post of the very same hats asking the Facie World if anyone could make them.  And I reentered the Cloche Hat ring.

I have found someone on Etsy who claims to have the translated pattern for sale. Now I don't know if they are selling the Russian- English translated version which is freely available online on the website from which I got the photos above, or if she has actually tamed the beast and figured it out herself.

I think that's kind of rude. It's a freely available pattern. Just hard to make sense of.

So I tried again.  Using 4ply baby wool, I managed to make the Pink Hat above.

But it's way to soft and floppy.  Today I have decided I am going to try and work out the pattern for both the hats and hopefully keep you updated on how I go!   But I hope you're a little forgiving as we're staring down the maw of Xmas and life has suddenly gotten it's busy on.

To get myself started I headed down to Spotlight and picked up some cotton yarn yumminess...

When I've figured them out I'll print the real- life English language version for everyone!

xox

Louise

The Red Haired Amazona

UPDATE:  I have just posted about my latest progress on these cute little hats here!