A little surprise gift for my amazing hubby for taking such good care of me while recovering from surgery!

What an AWESOME hat pattern!!! I love everything about this hat - the cable pattern, the squishy garter stitch flanking the cables, and how EASY the pattern was to memorize and knit. And yes, after swatching, this was a quick but oh-so-enjoyable two day knitting project. Look out family - this hat will be showing up in future gift exchanges!

Knitting Notes

• Since I was knitting with an unknown, deep-stash yarn, I spent a bit more time than normal swatching to figure out which size needles made the cables the “happiest”. This yarn knitted up like a heavy worsted or aran-weight yarn, so I went up a size needle to a seven.
• Alternate cable cast-on of 100 stitches
• Worked 24 rounds of ribbing for a deep, fold-up brim, because that’s Brian’s favorite.
• Cast-on, 24 rounds of ribbing, and set-up round used 39 grams of yarn.
• Since my row gauge was much bigger (6 rounds per inch vs pattern’s 8 rounds per inch) I only needed to knit six repeats of the cable pattern. Repeats used around 9 grams each of yarn.
• Crown decrease section used 10.2 grams. Was a close game of yarn-chicken - only had 3.6 grams left!
• My two favorite pieces of advice when knitting a hat: swatch before beginning and weigh your yarn as you knit your hat - knowing how much yarn is used in the ribbing and how much is used in a repeat will help you win yarn-chicken!