This is my second one of these gems…I plan on making my tail different than the written directions…I wasn’t really happy with the first one I did-I am pretty sure I did it correctly, but I think it needs a better shape or something…I may try SailorCarol’s adaptation-it is really cute. I’m really miffed that the tail in knitty is not like the tail in the pattern-that really bothered me with the last one-I only just found a question and answer page that explains why there is a difference. I spent entirely way too much time wondering what I did wrong-when I didn’t! ugh!

I used GSR (german short rows) for my short rows…I always do-I’m not a fan of w&t. So basically on the first stitch of each short row I did a double stitch-that way there is nothing to pick up or look cruddy. I know it said we don’t have to pick them up-but I read some notes of folks that were not too happy with the result.

Since I had to send the other one to a different state-at a request by a family member who needed a hot tub hat (who doesn’t need a hot tub hat)…I am making one for myself! MYSELF! NOT SHARING!! haha!

I did actually use that tail method and much prefer it-a better looking and far easier to make tail-win win! Thanks so much for sharing your notes with us SailorCarol! You rock!

Dd modeled the hat for me…even if she is totally against silly hats…Still working on converting her though! :)

I used some random fair isle charts I found on line-the first big section was stranded colorwork-from a free chart that was floating out there.

For my eyes I used a crochet hook-made a magic ring- ch 1, 8 sc in ring do NOT Join-2 sc in each sc around-skip one sc, sl st in next sc and finish off. I then just embroidered the x’s with some black. :)

I used a combination of Plymouth Encore, Caron Simply Soft and some Lion Heartland….my favorite was the Plymouth Encore-and unfortunately I used up the majority of my stash on the first fish hat. I still like this one though-I’m loving how the yellow makes it pop! :)