I knit tons of hats, but I rarely knit hats for myself. The last time I really knit myself a hat was in 2009. I still wear that one a lot, but unfortunately it can no longer contain my hair. None of my hats do anymore except my leopard print hat and its floats make it a bit too much for anything but deep winter wear. I was in need of a hat that I can tuck my hair up inside when it is raining or when I’m too lazy to blow dry it until the ends are completely dry.
This guy actually works with my hair both in and out which never usually happens.
I’m still rather enchanted with the stitch pattern I used for my cowl that I stole from a sweater in A Very Long Engagement. I kept thinking about how to use it on a hat and make the decreases look nice. I finally just cast on and decided to figure it out on the fly.
I ended up doing the sort of decreases where you decrease a lot in one row, work a couple of rows straight, and then repeat the process. I usually avoid decreases like that like that plague because they involve lots of math (which we have established is not my friend) and have a tendency to end up bunchy and weird even if the math is correct. The number of stitches I had were very convenient for the math and I think the folds of the stitch pattern help prevent any weird bunching so it ended up working out perfectly.
The downside of the stitch pattern’s tendency to fold in on itself was that when I took this off my needles it looked like I had made a beanie. It was a good looking beanie so I didn’t panic, but I was really hopeful that blocking would make it into the beret I wanted. I was in luck. I blocked it over a dinner plate and the rib opened up and the columns of alternating purl and knit chunks flattened out. Unfortunately blocking also opened up where I ran the yarn through the live stitches at the end, but I’m pretty sure that was my fault for not tying that off tight enough. I should go fix that so it looks a bit nicer, but odds are low that I will ever get around to it.
Now I have a hat that both contains my hair and vaguely matches one of my winter accessories. It’s a good thing I made the hat in highlighter yellow. If it had been dark grey, that would have matched my cowl much too well. I used two skeins of Jo Sharp Classic DK Wool in Limoncello for this. I have quite a bit of the second skein left over. I bought the yarn last summer and have zero plans for it. I just couldn’t resist the color. I love ugly yellows.
I used 3.75mm needles for the ribbing and 4.5mm needles for the body so it was a fairly quick knit.
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