UPDATE:

I’ve attached notes on my blog under shared stuff.

More things to consider when knitting. The decreases on this pattern are really slow. You may want to do an extra cable repeat and then decrease a little more sharply so the hat isn’t so narrow at the top. And then this would get rid of all those extra rows after the last cable, which I think would make it look better.

The hat weighs 98 grams which means I should have been able to finish this hat with one skein but it never comes out right on Ravelry.

I heavily improvised this pattern. I only followed the pattern in the number of sts I cast on and at the very end of the decreases. I’m still not in love with the how the decreases look but I like it better than the original pattern. Now I have to figure out how to get cords on the ear flaps.

12/25/09 - Kerry loves it!

12/24/09 - Ok - down to the wire. I am almost finished with the cords! I ended up copying the Thorpe hat and crocheting around the edge and doing a braided cord. I love the cord…not so sure about my half double crochet…it seems kinda chunky compared to everyone’s Thorpe. Maybe a crab stitch would have looked better…I think so. Oh well - I’m not going to undo it.

12/21/09 - So, I think the hat turned out pretty good…except it’s small. Even with as small as the hat turned out, it still used over skein and it is HEAVY! I’m calling this a pretty good test run. The next hat I want to knit on US10 needles.

12/20/09 - My niece requested an earflap hat for her Christmas present so I’m going to knit this with earflaps. We’ll see how it turns out.