SUPER HAPPY with the hat :))) The cat motive is from the Temple cats hat, the rest I made up on the go. I added one stitch between the cats. Used the cashmere lace held double, stranded bit 2.5mm, stockinette stitch 2mm. From the other projects of the Temple Cats I thought the cats look nicer with dark on light background, so I went with that :)

Some remarks:

The stitch gauge between the stranded and non-stranded parts (besides the ribbing) is quite different: 36/34.25 (non-stranded) vs 40.5 (stranded) (pictures 12-14). There is no apparent ‘fault’ in the finished had…

The head circumference is 49.5cm. The hat flat (pic 10) measures 21.5cm. Take that by 2 plus another cm or so would make 44 cm, about an inch of negative ease. Mathematically with the stitch gauge of the stranded part (pic 12) the circumference comes to: 10 cm -> 40.54 sts would with 180 sts make 44.4 cm which comes again to 1 inch negative ease and corresponds with measuring the whole hat.

The whole project planning was a mess as in the beginning in pic 3 I took the st gauge and calculated the sts for the head circumference leaving out any negative ease and kept changing around plans. So really, really happy all worked out.

22 May 2019

oookay - my daughter’s finishing primary school this year and Thursday next week they’re going on an overnight school tour. this being May but Ireland, warm clothes are advisable… she wants a new hat as the one she is wearing now slides always off and her cat hat has disappeared!!! I still can’t quite get this thing out of my children - oh, dunno where it is, let’s by a new one… beating is not quite modern anymore, is it?

can I make one in a week, sure - can I make a nice one, using lace yarn with some stranded colourwork that fits as well the first time around? mmmh… I will swatch with the 2/28NM cashmere lace…

I think I will do that, knit the stranded part, wash it and decide how to go from there…

23 May 2019

I made a small swatch, and think am going with the yarn held double, using 2.5mm for the st st and 3mm for the colourwork. Row gauge is more guesswork than anything else, but it’s not really important for the hat fitting or not.

And here we go already… my friend came for a tea and I was doing my gauge thing to cast on, so in a hurry I just used the head circumference. Now I am a few hours into it and am thinking, oooh - shouldn’t it have some negative ease for not falling off? Especially, cashmere and ribbing are not best friends… well, I did the ribbing with 2mm, 2 needle sizes down, that should do some smaller brim, and - do I want the stranded part with negative ease? Will it not become too tight?

24 May 2019

Ah well, I’ll do a brim to fold over, so my beginning is not the ‘beginning of the hat’ after that. towards the end of the ribbing decrease 12, 4 more ribbing rows, 3 rows st st, 1 row reverse st st (folding line), st st. after about 10 rows increase the 12 sts again and knit the height of the brim. well there, now I need to change direction or I’ll have a reverse st st bg - not so cool for stranded knitting. wrap and turn and back in business.

But - the next thing is: I either do the stranded part with 3mm needles as in my swatch which would mean either DPNS or Magic loop. Latter I really, really dislike but stranded knitting with DPNS is not high on my ‘like’ list either… I could stay with 2.5mm where I have a 40cm circ but how many sts would I need to increase to counteract the sts gauge diff in stranded and non-stranded knitting???? The project planning is quite a disaster!!! I’ll have a tea and think about it - more swatching is out of the question for time reasons. Hell no, I’ll do a bit 3mm st st and measure that. See what difference in st gauge I have and just do proportionally what I got for the 3mm swatches for the 2.5mm and knit the stranded part with these and hope for the best… It will not be too accurate in any case: the swatch is small and flat, the hat is in the round, but then again, knitted fabric is somewhat elastic to even it out to some extent, I hope

25 May 2019
Looking good:) Time, size and pattern wise! Now to the crown, not my favourite part… will try to decrease with not having the ‘lines’, meaning not always in the same spot in consecutive rows. Not sure how that will look like, but give it a go being aware that I may have to re-knit:

dec 1: k2tog, k13 180->168 (minus 12)
k all
dec 2: k6, k2tog, k6 168->156 (minus 12)
k all
dec 3: k3, k2tog, k8 156->144 (minus 12)
k all
dec 4: k7, k2tog, k3 144->132 (minus 12)
k all
dec 5: k5, k2tog, k4 132->120 (minus 12)
k all
dec 6: k1, k2tog, k7 120->108 (minus 12)
k all
dec 7: k4, k2tog, k3 108->96 (minus 12)
k all
dec 8: k2, k2tog, k4 96->88 (minus 12)
k all
dec 9: k3, k2tog, k2 88->72 (minus 12)
k all
dec 10: k1, k2tog, k3 72->60 (minus 12)
k all
dec 11: k2tog, k3 60->48 (minus 12)
k all
dec 12: k1, k2tog, k1 48->36 (minus 12)
dec 13: k2tog, k1 36->24 (minus 12)
dec 14: k2tog until 6 sts left, cut yarn, pull yarn through the 6 sts, weave in :)

26 May 2019

Finished and fits :))) I still need to wash it and sew on the brim. I should have changed ‘direction’ earlier for the brim to hold better folded by its own, but am extremely happy with this project - so many assumptions and changed along the way and it fits the first time round. Will put up more photos but for now - happy dance!!!