Takeaway points: I strongly recommend starting halfway through the chart and doing 1.5 repeats, or doing 2 full repeats if you want serious slouch.

9/18/16 Blocking really helped even everything out (not surprisingly) and the spruce pattern looks really nice. The hat measures about 18.5” at the brim and about 24” in the pattern, and there’s a lot of stretch. It’s about 11” from crown to brim. It’s a little bit loose even on my big head, but that’s what I was going for. It’s super soft and I’m very happy with it. I did my gauge measurement with the hat unstretched, to the best of my ability.

9/9/16 Done, except for blocking. The size came out just right with 1.5 chart repeats. The pattern looks much better since I pulled it out and did the RTs right! I’m very happy with how it turned out.

9/8/16 Just started the crown decreases. I’m really glad I ripped back and redid it. It’s looking really nice this time around!

9/6/16 I ended up frogging back to the end of the ribbing after all. I realized shortly after my 9/5 update that, despite the fact that I’d read and reread the RT directions at least three times, I was somehow still doing it wrong. I just wasn’t happy with the texture it gave the knitted fabric so, between that and the likelihood that the length was going to be all wrong, I decided to bite the bullet. I picked up all the stitches and redid the increase row. I tried to start on the chart, but I found I just kept making mistake after mistake, so I decided to put it away for the night.

9/5/16 I’m making the beret style. I got 3/4 of the way through the chart before bothering to read anyone else’s project notes, so I didn’t know about the recommended modification to make the hat a bit longer (start halfway through the chart and work 1.5 repeats). I really don’t want to rip the whole hat back, so I’m planning on knitting to 1.5 chart repeats and see how long it is/how much yarn I have left. From there, I’ll either do modified decreases or I’ll finish out the second chart repeat.

I’m noticing my RTs are looking very uneven compared to my LTs. Not sure why that is. In another yarn, I might care more…but this yarn has a bit of a halo anyway. For now, I will just carry on. If I made this pattern again, I might research cleaner ways of doing a RT (or figuring out why mine don’t look the same as other peoples’).

9/3/16 Apparently I really want this yarn to be a hat!

Needles: US7 Addi rockets, US8 Clover Takumi bamboo