I made a hat!

I've been knitting merrily along on the hat for the Cabled Baby Set (the mother was due Monday, and I haven't heard news yet). As I approached the shaping for the crown, it occurred to me that I've never made a hat before!



The instructions said to decrease 6 stitches evenly spaced over every other row, 6 times. Of course, I had to figure out how to space the decreases, so this is the math that I did:

Decreasing 6 stitches over a row of 80 stitches involves 6 x k2tog=12 stitches. 80-12=68. I then divided 68 by 6, figuring that I should put 11 stitches between each decreasing pair, splitting the remaining 13 stitches at each end, as follows:

7 - (2) - 11 - (2) - 11 - (2) - 11 - (2) - 11 - (2) - 11 -(2) - 6

where the 2 in parentheses indicates a k2tog and the regular numbers indicate knit stitches.

For each subsequent decrease row, I then had to reduce one stitch from one of the ends (I alternated these), then one stitch from each middle section. The next decrease rows went like this:

6 - (2) - 10 - (2) - 10 - (2) - 10 - (2) - 10 - (2) - 10 - (2) - 6
5 - (2) - 9 - (2) - 9 - (2) - 9 - (2) - 9 - (2) - 9 - (2) - 6
5 - (2) - 8 - (2) - 8 - (2) - 8 - (2) - 8 - (2) - 8 - (2) - 5
4 - (2) - 7 - (2) - 7 - (2) - 7 - (2) - 7 - (2) - 7 - (2) - 5
4 - (2) - 6 - (2) - 6 - (2) - 6 - (2) - 6 - (2) - 6 - (2) - 4

Then I was to decrease 6 stitches evenly spaced over the next 6 rows, every row. I used almost the exact same pattern, though because I was turning the work between the rows, I alternated back and forth on how I decreased, reading through the lines as if it were a snake.

3 - (2) - 5 - (2) - 5 - (2) - 5 - (2) - 5 - (2) - 5 - (2) - 4
3 - (2) - 4 - (2) - 4 - (2) - 4 - (2) - 4 - (2) - 4 - (2) - 3
2 - (2) - 3 - (2) - 3 - (2) - 3 - (2) - 3 - (2) - 3 - (2) - 3
2 - (2) - 2 - (2) - 2 - (2) - 2 - (2) - 2 - (2) - 2 - (2) - 2
1 - (2) - 1 - (2) - 1 - (2) - 1 - (2) - 1 - (2) - 1 - (2) - 2
1 - (2) - 0 - (2) - 0 - (2) - 0 - (2) - 0 - (2) - 0 - (2) - 1

The last row basically involved knitting a stitch, then 6 k2tog's, then knitting the last stitch.

Really rather elegant I think.



It made a lovely set of decreases with a sort of scalloped look before I sewed it together, a snowflake-like expanding shape once seamed.



Seaming it was a little tricky, and I was a bit unhappy with the first go at it. As I was weaving in ends, I decided to reinforce the seam, and that made it a lot neater. I was hesitant about a baby hat that had a seam running up the back, thinking it would be uncomfortable, but it's a 12 month size hat, so in theory by then, our baby should be able to hold his head up without trouble.



Next up, seaming the sweater and knitting some booties!