The Weekend Hat

The 'weekend hat', this weekend,  allowed time for my 'next-big-project' choices to  percolate.  And gave me a neat hat to boot.

This is the Jacques Cousteau Hat.  While looking quite 'pointy' when sitting on the counter, it nonetheless looks great on the head.

What connection the pattern  has with M. Cousteau, I don't know, but it is an interesting - and free on ravelry -  pattern.

The hat is knit with DK weight yarn  and 3.5 mm needles.   I used Shelridge Farm stash yarn left over from a vest kit I purchased from them years ago at the KW Knitters Fair but found too frustrating to be  fun.  With 120 stitches for the ladies size, the hat fits my  head but  it fits Fred's better.  The ribbing is a 3x2 rib so a smaller hat could be made by casting on fewer stitches in multiples of five as long as the cast on number is divisible by four to properly set up the decrease points.      With eight inches of ribbing before the crown decreases, there is lots of doubled-up hat to keep the ears warm.

The feature I like about this hat is the method of decreasing for the crown.

First, there are only four decrease points rather than the more common eight or ten.   Then, instead of a K2Tog or an SSK or a combination of the two, the decreases are made by 'casting off''.  Knit to the end of the quarter section, then cast off the last two stitches.  This gives the crown it's very pronounced decrease lines.

Without frills or furbelows, this is most definitely,  a guy's hat.  My issue now is to find a guy that will wear a neon green hat.    For longer than modelling time, that is.