Bill’s Valentine’s Hat

I decided very last minute that Bill needed a new hat, and it would be fun to make one for him in the colors of our new Massey Ferguson tractor – black and red. I didn’t have appropriate yarn on hand in those colors, so on Sunday I dyed up a half skein in each color on Bona Fide, laboring under the delusion that I would be able to knit the whole hat on Monday and have it done for him for Valentine’s Day on Tuesday. That did not, in fact, happen.

I did start it Monday as soon as he left for work, and I made a good dent in the ribbing, but since I am not a lady of leisure and had to work, I didn’t make any more progress beyond a few more rounds that evening.

I told him Tuesday he had a gift coming but it wasn’t finished. I finally thought I’d finished it on Wed, only to realize it really needed to have another inch or so before the decreases, so I ripped out the decrease section and worked more on it in the evening. I finally finished it this morning, so he’ll be getting it two days late, but I doubt he’s losing sleep over it.

I’m trying to come up with the ideal recipe for Bill’s hats, because he really likes deep ribbing that can be turned up to keep his ears warm. As a guideline, I used my notes from a couple of prior hats, which I’ve refined into this:

Cast on 84 stitches.
Worked 7.5″ of 2×2 ribbing in black
Switched to red and worked 3.5″ of stockinette before starting a series of 7 decreases (every 12 stitches) every other round to the end, with no straight round between the final K1, K2tog round and the K2tog round.

I think it should fit him pretty well with the brim turned up high enough to not show where the red was joined (a pet peeve of mine). I guess we’ll see! Pictures forthcoming!