I got this lovely skein of yarn in a grab bag with other unlabeled skeins when our local yarn store was going out of business. I’m guessing this is a Noro yarn with possibly some mohair in it -- very soft and comfy in texture, and the colors are deliciously muted.

When I started this hat, I didn’t have a pattern in mind, but I’ve made enough hats now to kind of make some educated guesses at how it’s going to go.

So I cast on 92 stitches (why such an “odd” starting number, I do not know). I did a K3, P1 pattern for the brim ribbing (about 1.5 inches). Then I did 1 row of increases -- P1, M1, P7 (repeat to end of row), and put in one extra increase in the last 4 stitches to make my final total an even number -- 104 stitches.

I chose to purl the first row after the brim to make a nice “line” between the brim and the hat.

Then I had to decide on what pattern I was going to do for the rest of the hat. I didn’t want to just purl the whole thing (or knit the whole thing for that matter). So I opted to start a basket weave (K4, P4 for 4 rows, then P4, K4 for 4 rows).

When I got to the end of the first set of basket weave (8 rows), I decided I didn’t want to do that the whole way around, so then I knit 4 rows, and then purled 4 rows. I liked the way those 16 rows looked together and made that my pattern.

So the first 8 sets (4 rows each) looked like:
-- Basket weave (K4 then P4) 4 rows
-- Basket weave (P4 then K4) 4 rows
-- Knit (4 rows)
-- Purl (4 rows)

-- Basket weave (K4 then P4) 4 rows
-- Basket weave (P4 then K4) 4 rows
-- PURL (4 rows) ** because I wasn’t paying attention and purled first instead of knit
-- KNIT (4 rows) -- start decrease here

** This happy accident actually worked out beautifully because it really highlighted the center of the hat with the natural color change in the yarn.

At the beginning of the last set of 4 rows (knit), it was time to decrease. I did a standard 8-stitch decrease plus 1 row of non-decreases in between.

K2tog, K6 * repeat until end of row. (8 stitch decrease)
Knit 1 row.
K2tog, K5 * repeat until end of row. (7 stitch decrease)
Knit 1 row.

Then I started doing the basket weave. I’ll admit I wasn’t switching the K and P very well doing this, so my pattern looks a bit “muddy”, but because of the color change, it looks like it was planned that way. ;)

Decrease every 6 stitches started out like this…
-- K2tog, K2, P2 (6 stitches), P2tog, K4 (6 stitches) P2tog, P2, K2 (6 stitches)…
-- Basket weave (K4, P4) 1 row in between

Then 5 stitch decrease.
-- K2tog, K2, P1, P2tog, P1, K2, K2tog, P4…
(and you can see why it got a bit messy)
-- Basket weave (K4, P4) 1 row

Then flip basket weave for 4 stitch decrease.
-- P2tog, P2, K2tog, K2, P2tog, P2, K2tog, K2…
-- Then basket weave (P4, K4) 1 row in between

Somewhere around here I had to switch to double pointed needles.

Then realized I should decrease basket weave to 3 stitches instead of 4…
-- P2tog, P1, K2tog, K1, P2tog, P1, K2tog, K1…
-- Then I purled 1 row in between

Knit last decreases (K2tog 1 row, K last row).

The cool thing (totally unplanned) was that my final 5 stitches formed a star in the center and because I had knit the last couple of rows before the final bind off, it really made the “star” pop.

The hat fits nicely, albeit loosely. So if I were to make this again, I’d probably start with 84 stitches to make it just a bit tighter around the brim.