The Green Hat-Along

So, one of the local knitting geeks posted to a local knitting group about the Green Hat Knit Along and, being the huge geek that I am, I simply couldn't resist. I haven't "officially" joined, mainly because I'm too lazy to create an account. Also, I had to finish Natalie's stuff and Bailey's slipper socks before I could start a new project - especially one for me! - in good conscience. Also, I couldn't find a pattern. I have this absolutely yummy hand painted merino and can't find a pattern to knit a hat. Issues. Really, my issue isn't a dearth of patterns - there are certainly a bazillion hat patterns on the 'net - but a strong dislike for hats. And it's not really that I don't like hats, rather, I have long hair that is worn up almost all the time and the donning of a hat results in my looking like I have a rodent stow-away on the back of my head. Add to that the fact that my hair is almost always put up with sitcks and the look gets even more interesting. Only a beret would do, then. I looked at beret patterns. Hundreds of beret and tam patterns, patterns for "pithy" hats... and then I began to understand that, in order to do justice to this lovely wool, I would simply have to design my own. I've decided to do a cabled band, topped with a bit of seed stitch, then your standard beret increase.

I probably, in retrospect, should have used a provisional cast-on and grafted the band into a round, but I had already frogged a bunch of cable prototypes and temporarily lost my mind, so this puppy will have a seamed edge to the band.

I do enjoy how the slipped edge stitches mirror the cables. Couldn't have worked out better if I'd planned it that way. Well, I did plan to slip the stitches to give a nice area for picking up for the rest of the hat, but I had no idea they'd behave so nicely. The seed stitch flanked cable is nice and firm, to combat the tendency of merino to want to stretch with use. I think of everything. Except, of course, that provisional cast on.