I-Cord Tops on Baby Hats

Two of my friends are becoming first time grandparents this summer. I picked up some cute yarns on my April shopping spree (a skein of each of these two at 3 Kittens) that said baby girl to me. I pulled them out last week and got to work.

Regia

The Regia hat is from Little England Designs and is called the Fool's Fair Isle Baby Hat. I looked around the internet but didn't find it. It is intended to be knit with one of those nifty fake fair isle yarns, but I used a random stripe skein. The hat is finished with two strips of i-cord. (Decrease until there are 8-12 stitches remaining. With half the stitches, create a 4" I-Cord.  Repeat to create a second tail and tie them together.)

I wasn't thrilled with the hat, but I think a gentle blocking might make a difference.

Panda Cotton

The second hat is out of Crystal Palace Yarns Panda Cotton from a modified free pattern. The pattern was originally written for Crystal Palace Bamboozle (which has now been discontinued). Both yarns are bamboo, cotton and nylon, but the Panda Cotton is 6-7 inches to the inch on a 1-2 and the Bamboozle was a gauge of 4.5 stitches to the inch on a 9.

Two things about this pattern made me willing to adjust and rewrite, the rib is unusual and I liked the pattern the double decreases created. The 'rib' of seed stitch is possible because of the stretch the nylon adds to the yarn.  The decreases at the top of the hat are worked in 4 double decreases.  The pattern is written to be re-sized with the equation 8x + 12.

I made a couple modifications:

• needle size: 1 for cast on & seed stitch section, a 3 for the stockinette stitch.
• Change the 12 to 13. (By casting on an odd number, the seed stitch appears seamless.) At the end of the rib section, slip the last stitch as if to knit, (lift the marker off the needle), knit the next stitch, pass the slipped stitch over the knit stitch. (Put the marker back on behind the decreased stitch.)
• My x=8, so I cast on 77 stitches.
• I knit 1.25" of seed stitch and 2.5" of stockinette to the start of the decreases; so my hat is a little shorter than the pattern, but mine was also about 12" in circumference
• Decreases: Instead of round 1 starting with K7, it is actually Kx, which in my case was 8.

I was so happy with the Panda Cotton Hat (and there was about half a skein left), I made a second one!