Some Thought Did Go Into The Process

Although I seriously doubt it.

I decided to knit a hat for my niece's boyfriend. I chose a pattern before I bought yarn which is the black tweed yarn shown in the bottom right corner in this post. It is Monte Donegal from Plymouth Yarns; a mix of alpaca, merino, acrylic and rayon. It is a lovely soft yarn. The pattern I chose was the Antler Touque by Tin Can Knits.

So far so good until I looked at gauge. The pattern has a gauge of 18 stitches and the yarn is 20 stitches. I know the recipient has a big head and as I was already planning to knit the largest size, what did I decide to do? Go up a needle size. I knew this was crazy. I know that I tend to knit to the gauge stated on the ball bands of large yarn companies, I know that going up a needle size would make a looser fabric. BUT I STILL DID IT. And guess what, after casting on 106 stitches, joining without twisting, (I feel like that should be in all caps too), and ribbing a few rows I knew it was wrong and I should work with the recommended needle size. So did I re-cast on with smaller needles? No. I decided I needed a completely different pattern with a gauge that matched the yarn.

I came up with this pattern. I thought it was a cable pattern but two stitches go over two stitches whereas with a cable the stitches cross in front of or behind other stitches. After pulling the needles out of the original cast on and before ripping it out completely I stretched the rib to see how wide the hat was and it was plenty wide but I was so set on the other pattern it never occurred to me to just cast on the same pattern with smaller needles. I think I was worried about how much the cables would pull in the main part of the hat.

The pattern was a quick knit and easily memorized. I added more rib rows to the bottom and added an extra eight rows of pattern before the decreases. I used one whole ball of yarn. I'll include a photo to show how much yarn was left, against my laptop as reference. Which means I have one complete ball left over but that can become fingerless gloves at Christmas. The hat is amazingly stretchy so I am confident it will fit and the "cables" show up nicely even though the yarn is dark.