I’ve done a little bit of color work when I tried knitting in the past (a corrugated ribbed scarf), but this is my first finished Fair Isle project. It might also be the first time I made a gauge swatch before starting, so the hat actually fits me (I wanted to do the 96-stitch cast on, but my swatch was closer to 4 spi instead of 4.5, so I dropped down a needle size to do the actual hat). I held the green yarn in my left hand and the brown in my right (that makes the green the dominate color, but I don’t understand well why that is yet). I normally knit English style, so this project gave me plenty of continental practice (I kept the green in my left even on all-green rows).

Overall I like this pattern -- it is logical and easy to remember. I want to try it with other colors. I didn’t get a photo of the inside, but I wrapped the floats every other stitch and think it turned out rather tidy on the inside.

This hat was donated with several others to a local charity that distributes them at its free health clinics and soup kitchens.

Imperfections

• I accidentally added an extra half-round after switching to magic loop -- I noticed a couple of rounds later and decided to even it out with another extra half round. The hat is a bit taller than written in the pattern, but it’s okay

• Messed up pattern on one row because I dropped a stitch and didn’t notice until I came back around. I was able to fix the stitch, but the color pattern is off on that row. I don’t think it is noticeable.

• I struggled with magic loop while holding yarn in my left hand which resulted in some loosey-goosey stitches. But for the most part I think I still knit too tight; the k2togs on the decreases were quite difficult to pull through.

• Just like on my cabled dad hat project, the decreases produced stiff ridges/peaks. A combination of the stiff yarn i’m using and my tight stitches?