Fiber Fool

Pattern:Peak Brim Flare Crown Star Top Hat by Kathryn Alexander
Yarn:Noro Silk Garden Lite, Color 2014 A
Needles:US7 16″ Addi Turbos
Size:~22″ circumference
Modifications:I bumped the gauge up from the called for 5 sts per inch to what I thought was going to be 4.5 sts per inch because the 18″ of the hat as written wouldn’t fit me well. I didn’t wash my swatch and it ended up more like 4 sts per inch. I also add one row of traditional flat entrelac rectangles before beginning the dimensional entrelac so with that and the gauge change the hat was getting deep so I also took out the last round of rectangles in the crown.

Notes:Overall I love this hat in the Noro. My only complaint is that you change direction of knitting the hat and if that corresponds with you high contrast color in the yarn you get what appears to be a seam when you look at the hat spot on in that area. Kind of nitpicky, but if I were to knit it again with this yarn and that seemed to happen I’d cut the yarn there and re-attach elsewhere in the color repeat. Next time I’d also probably use US5 needles with this yarn to firm up the fabric a bit and decrease the circumference of the hat as it is a bit big at the moment. Speaking of a bit big, it is also plenty large in depth so after the party I may give it a bit of a light fulling to snug it up a bit and give it some added body.

I’m quite sad Katheryn’s patterns are only available in kit form. As a spinner and sometimes dyer I’d much rather either use yarns like Noro or spin and dye my own colors. Plus, I don’t make much money so the kits make it prohibitive to actually knit her clever designs. All of that aside, a kit or two of hers may be finding its way onto my birthday wishlist. The other hat patterns (which I looked at after I was making good progress on this one) were all forms that popped into my head while working the dimensional entrelac but I don’t have enough experience with entrelac and dimensional entrelac to reverse engineer them and I’d really love the tam! :-)