This is a hat with a VERY generous fit, even for my unusually large head. If I were to knit this again, I’d size down in the needles for the ribbing and possibly knit a size small. Also, because I have black hair, I would pick the colors in reverse, i.e. the darker color for the lace, and the lighter color to show underneath. I might also try different kinds of stripes, e.g. switching colors every other row. I used traveling jogless stripes as adapted from here, but I have trouble with understanding how to carry yarns when knitting in the round. It shows when I stretch it out.

Blocking helped with the slouch. While knitting, I kept missing YOs, so the lace pattern required a bit more focus and attention. I finally learned to just count “knit 5, purl 2” after a row with various YOs, and if that count was off, I’d just create a YO where there should’ve been one by picking up the yarn from front to back like one should for an M1 and then knit it without twisting the yarn.

You can tell in the pictures too that I cannot knit with dpns. The areas where I switch from one dpn to another has a gap no matter how tight i tried to pull that first stitch. I eventually gave up and got a pair of 16in circulars.

The palette purple yarn BLEEDS. I was a bit horrified when I saw a bucket of purple water after soaking. It’s tinted the other yarn purple. I’m only slightly sad about it.

Notes for me:

• 4/13 I used the tubular cast-on video from Ysolda Teague here. I don’t particularly like knitting with dpns, so I tried initially with magic loop. But I tend to store my circulars wrapped in a circle so they tend to twist back into a loop, making this magic loop method more of a tangled mess than I was willing to put up with.

• 4/16 Jogless stripes:
  On second row of color change, remove marker marking start of round, slip first stitch purlwise, then replace marker.

• 4/17 Finished knitting, but I’m feeling very meh about the finished project. The double fabric makes the hat more bulky rather than slouchy. The tubular cast on makes for a very stretchy edge. Too stretchy almost as the hat doesn’t stay on as well as I would like.

• 4/19 Okay, I like the FO more after blocking. One would think that I’d know by now to reserve opinions about a project after blocking.

• 5/6 I tried to fix the fit issue by blasting the brim with my blow dryer. I doubt that that ACTUALLY fixed the fit issue, but it feels like a better fit when I’m wearing it. Hey, perception is what matters.