A six-hat trip

Hat No. 6 during UK trip
Originally uploaded by Suzie Rozie.

If I had any consistency, I would knit hats every time I traveled and then give every trip a hat rating. Our tour of the U.K. would be a six-hat (plus one headband) tour. This was the sixth and last hat I knitted while we were gone.

I don't ever remember knitting a hat before this year, and I think I fell into doing it because it seemed to be a good way to try some stitch variations, using a quick project; and, besides that, it was knitting, and knitting is comforting to me. Last year, I made a few belts and scarfs, but somehow, that wasn't as satisfying. I guess I'm a hat person.

Donna and I knitted daily while I was visiting in the Philippines, and I made three or four baby hats there. I don't think that's a fair measure of the hat-rating for that trip, though, because we knitted a bunch of other things as well.

This hat formula or recipe is of my own devising. I thought I'd like something with a bunch of crown room, and this recipe gives it because the decreases, when they begin to happen, happen every 10 stitches, so the decreasing happens fast. Many hat patterns decrease 6, plus or minus, stitches every other round at the crown; but with 140 stitches to begin with, this one decreases 14 stitches every other round. To compensate, you knit more rows (inches) before you start the decreases, and the result is that you end up with a nice, comfy (and not quite so hair-flattening) crown.

The basic recipe for this hat is simple.

- Find your gauge for the needles and yarn you want to use, and make it divisible by 4 for K2, P2 ribbing.

- After the ribbing, increase 30 to 40 percent (unlike a tam which is generally increased 50 percent), and adjust the count so it's divisible by 10. Use whatever pattern you devise for the 10 stitches.

- Knit to within an inch or so of where you need to close the top of the hat, and then K2tog every 10 (for the first row) 14 times. Work the next round in whatever stitch pattern you've chosen.

- Continue the decreases, knitting one less stitch before decreasing every time, until you have only a few stitches remaining on two needles. Knit them up (and decrease a few more, if necessary) into an I-cord to close the top, making sufficient I-cord to twist into a button (or more if you want something other than a button), and then bind off.

- Weave in the ends and do whatever you want with the I-cord closure.

- Done!

I find the picture of the hat is interesting. I stood against a light peach-gold wall in the hallway and Lauren took the picture, using flash. My glasses look really thick, which they aren't. But if you look closely, you can see where the flash caught something of Lauren's image in the lenses.