Hat

Second attempt to draft my own hat pattern...I love it! I'm never using a hat pattern again - it's so unnecessary!
Completed 1/26/2008

Materials
Yarn - 2 balls (175 yards) Kross Mondial (100% merino wool) (from Knit NY - $15.75/ball)
Needles - US 10

Getting started (without a pattern):
1. I started out making a little rib swatch (3x1 rib).
2. I stretched out the swatch as much as I could, and measured for gauge (2 sts/inch). (Unstretched, the gauge was 4 sts/inch.)
3. I measured the widest part of Eric's head: 22.75 inches
4. Simple math: (Inches around Eric's head) times (stretched-out gauge) = 48 inches
5. I cast on 48 inches and knit a few rows, but it seemed too small. In order to check, I slipped the stitches onto a piece of yarn, and tested the size on Eric's head. It was too small! I undid what I had knitted.
6. I rechecked my gauge. This time, I didn't stretch the swatch as much. I measured about 2.75 - 3 inches/inch (depending on what part of the rib I measured).
7. I calculated the number of cast on stitches using both gauges, in order to establish a range. (Inches around Eric's head) times (2.75) = 62.6 AND (Inches around Eric's head) times (3) = 68.3. Therefore, I figured I should cast on somewhere between 63 and 68 inches.
8. To choose the exact number of cast on stitches, I considered the number of stitches in my pattern (3 x 1 rib), which is 4. Therefore, I chose 64 inches because that's a number divisible by 4.

Shaping the top of the hat (without a pattern):
1. Place markers at regular intervals around the stitches on the needle. (In my case, since I had 64 inches, I started with 4 markers, with 16 sts in between each marker.
2. Since the decreases would mess up the rib pattern, I changed to pure stockinette stitch.
3. Knit to the 2 stitches before the marker, and then knit those 2 stitches together.
4. Knit a plain row in between the decrease rows.
5. After 4 rows of this, I decided to add 4 more markers, each separated by 7 stitches, because I wanted to shrink the top of the hat more quickly, since it was already pretty long. I also started decreasing every row.
6. When there were 8 stitches left, I wove the yarn twice through the remaining stitches.

For next time:
I think I could have used 10.5 size needles. As I was knitting, it was a bit uncomfortable because it felt really tight.