12/22/2023 - finished the hat just in time to get it blocked and dried in time for being wrapped for Christmas! The finished hat looks great, and I think my boyfriend will get a ton of wear out of it. I can see why so many people make the hat. It’s a great way to use a special skein of fingering weight yarn that’s not socks. That said, it was kind of a slog knit for me. I might try it again with a lighter color yarn with more color variations for myself to see if that helps, but I’m pretty sure this is not going to become a “go to” knit for me.

11/26/2023 - another Christmas gift hat for my boyfriend using some stash yarn.

NOTES

1. I can TOTALLY see why some people have done a provisional cast on and knit this from the middle out; the pinhole cast on is so fiddly. I’m sure it does not help that I am using a dark blue color ;P
2. I originally increased to the Adult X-Large numbers, but once I got about 4” past the crown, I started to feel like it was going to be WAY too big. After measuring my boyfriends head (22”), I decided to rip back to the Adult Medium numbers. My finished hat has an 18” circumference and is 24” from cast on to bind off.
3. I forgot to weigh my yarn before I started knitting, so when I weighed my ball after the crown, I had to assumed I started with a true 100 grams, which gave me 12 grams for the crown. Since I was not 100% sure if I had a true 100 grams or slightly more, I knit till I had 14 grams left before starting the second crown; I had 3 grams of yarn left when I was done with the hat. I probably could have knit 2 more rounds before starting the decreases for the 2nd crown, but I didn’t really want to get through the fiddly crown on DPNs to be short like 5” or something ridiculous. IF I make the hat again, I will make sure to weigh my ball of yarn before I start knitting to ensure I have an accurate number for what to leave for the 2nd crown.