12/27 (Late AM) I like how it looks different on my head. I am wearing it with the “wrong side” out.

12/27 (Early AM) I made a big mistake on this hat.

My plan was to knit four rings of five entrelac squares each and then a ring of five half-squares to straighten out the hem of the hat. By mistake, I left off one of the squares on the last ring of full squares before I created the ring of half-squares. Plus, I ran out of green wool and---making a virtue out of necessity---made the last half-square out of red. It’s a feature, not a bug!

It still looks OK. Tomorrow I’ll post a picture of the hat on my head.

The wool is kind of itchy. I’ll probably make another one of these out of less-itchy wool--and more of it, so I don’t run out.

12/21 I’m just making this up as I go along. I thought it would be neat to have 5 entrelac squares coming together at the crown, cause I like 5-part symmetry. Then there will be a row of 5 entrelac squares around the ones at the crown, then another 5. We’ll see if this makes anything at all hat-like.

I figure by using ribbing (3k, 3p, 3k, 3p, 3k) the squares will at least be stretchy and should fit my head without too much forethought.

I’m using two techniques that will make the hat reversible.

1. I’m picking up the squares from the side edges of the previous squares, knitting into the loop that is formed when you turn the row. This took some figuring out, how to dig into that loop-knot-mess that a plain stockinette selvedge gives to create a nice smooth join. But I figured it out.
2. When I need to join the left or right edge of the square I’m knitting to the live stitches of a previous square (this doesn’t happen until square 5), I use a sliding-loop technique. This is similar to the join Rick Mondragon invented for intarsia, but you’re using live stitches as a source for the loop. Rick’s technique is for joining side-to-side, not side-to-end as here.