I hate this hat. It’s too big despite me going down a needle size to make up for the fact that Alpaca can stretch a bit. And I don’t just mean too big for my head, I mean it was inches larger than what the measurements suggested it should be. A friend knit two in the recommended yarn and had the same problem although we checked and my gauge was smaller and she had gotten gauge. Also the cast on the recommended in the pattern, the cabled cast on, produced a horrible looking wavy edge. I don’t typically have a problem with cast on edges so I don’t know what the deal with this is. I tried to give the hat to my boyfriend but he hated it too so it’s collecting dust somewhere in the house until one of us throws it away. Sad.