9/24/12: I wear a hat all the time because of my work so it is surprising to note that I only own and wear one single hat. And have been for over a decade. It was machine knitted by my mother and looks as good as the time the final stitch was stitched. (Picture of said hat is on the bottom of the left sidebar.) But it is high time I had a second hat and naturally I’m going to knit just that.

I’ve been overly picky about my hat pattern choice. I’ve been looking at hat patterns for about a year now and nothing struck my fancy until I spotted the St. Germain’s hat on the Baby Cocktails blog. I just started reading her blog and always pounce on the opportunity to check out her latest pattern debutes.

So I just casted on the swatch today (by knitting a small tube using a small circular needle), and discovered that a size 5 needle and the St. Denis Nordique yarn produces 5.25” sts per inch. Should be 6 sts, so I am moving the needle size down one notch to 4. I’m not going to even try making another swatch because I feel comfortable with this choice. Besides, I rather have a snug fitting hat than a loose one, and I know that this hat, with its ribbing and subtle flower pattern, that it is going to stretch.

OK now… Off to cast on!

9/30/12: The needles have been working swiftly. So swiftly, in fact, that the hat is 100% done! That took no time at all and now I have a lightweight, yet cozy hat that is profoundly unique; with its moss stitch flowers that have a purl stitch “stem” running all the way up to the crown’s top. These purl stems make an interesting effect--it makes the knitted fabric form imitation pleats or large gathers.

The fit is spot on and didn’t run into too many problems. Only two things come to mind:

1. The St. Denis Nordique yarn for some reason kept on breaking--yes breaking--at the beginning of knitting. Like during the swatching and ribbing stages. Don’t know if this is common with Nordique.

2. When it came time to decrease at the crown I followed the instructions: “Repeat Rounds 1 & 2 3 times.” But when it came down to the last repeat to be made, I didn’t have enough stitches to allow me to make the “SSK, P1, K2TOG.” Has anyone else run into problems during the decreasing?