This dragon hat is knitted all in one piece. The scales are not kntted and sewed on afterwards. Yarn: two strands of 85% wool 15% alpaca yarn recycled from sweater.

First Day: I knit a three stitch i cord (about 72 rows). Then I immediately went into seven stitch earflap using garter stitch. The first row of the hat I unraveled twice. The set up row, which might be called the first row, but you are only knitting the ear flaps, went like this.
14+1 +15 (flap)+1 + 33 +1 +15 (flap) +1 +14 = 95. You put an extra stitch before and after the earflaps purposefully. You decrease four stitches in the next row (the first full knitting row) when you k2tog connecting the earflap to the rest of the cast on row. E.g., one stitch before the earflap, k2tog. At end of row there will be 91 sts. I had a lot of trouble figuring out which side was the inside and outside of the earflaps. I pulled the i-cord to see which way the earflap curled to decide how to position the flap on the needle for the cast on row.
The earflap pattern came from the Modifications to Julie Hentz’s pattern. (She needs to redo/improve her original pattern with the mods everyone routinely does.)
The first day I spent over eight hours rewriting the pattern (with earflaps and tie), knitting, some unraveling and I only got to the 8 or 10th row of the main part of the hat - the part after the cord and earflaps. These rows are so preliminary, that they don’t even have numbers in my written version of this pattern.
Second Day: While watching television for five hours, I knitted more of this hat. I didn’t stop or goof off during those hours. There was a lot of counting and recounting. (Have about six stitch markers ready.) I am up to line 11 in my breakdown of this pattern (which is really row 19?). I finished the complicated fire breathing mouth, so the project gets easier now. I’m using a very long size 6 circular knitting needle, because the long metal needles are hard to move in my chair. The needles keep hitting the arms of the chair.
Third Day: Five hours of knitting today. Finished line 26. Things going pretty smoothly. I had to rip out a couple of rows a couple of times because the stitch count was wrong.
Fourth Day: Spent four hours knitting. Wow, that is a difficult pattern. The numbers just never work. Absolute concentration needed. You need to increase and decrease on the purl rows.
Fifth Day: Spent over three hours sewing up the back seam, sewing on the black, angry eyes, knitting the tail and sewing it on. I’m done.
Next hat that I knit with scales is going to be the Dino Hat with 405 projects to date. I need a Go-To hat pattern that doesn’t take over 21 hours. Even with all my experience with this particular pattern, I don’t think that I will knit it again. It just takes too much time.

Beginning (Boring) Information on Sizing
First Attempt: Cast on with size 8 needle. Knit first 8 rows with size 7. The length was over 22”. I think I am aiming for less than 20”. Obviously, these needles are too big with my gauge and this yarn.
For Second Attempt: Cast on with size 5. Knit first 8 rows with Size 4. Do main body with size .
Third Attempt: I knitted two bands with size 3 and size 4 needles and had parents try this band on the receiver of this gift, their son. Results: I will cast on with size 3 needles.