Geek hat

I recently had the very enjoyable experience of knitting a hat on commission. A friend liked my robot hat and wanted a duplicate for her husband, until we started talking about other possibilities. This is the design we worked out, using Christine Dumoulin's lovely charts from her Binary scarf.

The hat is just a basic toque, with a turned up ribbing & eight decrease points forming a swirl.


You can see the round ends -- it also shows you where to start reading, if you can read bits. Probably I should have done the green lines jogless, but that's not a technique I've used much.

Here's the hat flat:


I would make a few changes if I were to do this again. I'd either eliminate the plain rounds between the ribbing & the green line so it could be worn with the ribbing down, or I'd put in a fold line. I think the turnup isn't crisp enough. And if I did plan for a turned up ribbing I'd use one or two more plain black rounds, because the ribbing is just slightly longer than the black stockinette section as it stands.

Here's the hat with the ribbing down -- sadly droopy looking.

Much better, but it would be nice to see the bottom green line.

I used June Hiatt's Double Needle Cast-on (p. 133 in Principles of Knitting) which was pesky to do but just wonderful once finished. There's no constriction in the lower edge at all. I'll be using this on my next pair of top-down socks for sure.

quick project

Quickie hat for someone who needs a warm head now! That someone has a much bigger head than does my model, but if I made this again I'd make a smaller brim, and probably not switch to maroon until I started the robot chart. I'd also use a different yarn -- this is red heart (black & white) and walmart house brand (maroon) but I was housebound by an ice storm & needed to start Right Away. It'll do to be getting on with.