I want to say right off that I knit this hat for myself and did not use a specific pattern. I did take notes as I knitted, which I can’t seem to find.

The two skeins of Quarry yarn I purchased a while ago were meant to be used to make warm, winter hats for some boys I know. I bought Brooklyn Tweed Quarry in Obsidian (black) and Slate (dark gray), but when I tried to start a hat and join in the round the yarn came apart! I was so disappointed.

The Quarry wool was put away until I read something somewhere about how to work with it. Apparently it does tend to have this splitting problem which can be remedied by twisting the yarn to make it stronger before putting stress on it. Because I didn’t want to have to deal with this when beginning a hat, I made my brim from other yarn, with the plan to attach Quarry for the top only.

The Hat Cuff

To begin the hat at the cuff I held two leftover (stash) yarns together and knit a K1, P1 rib for about 6 inches. The yarn here is Miss Babs “Coffee Break” and Madelinetosh sock in “Arch”… I believe.

Although I now live in Florida, in New Hampshire my favorite winter hats had thick cuffs. Making an extra long brim to fold up gives an extra layer of warmth for the ears.

After I finished knitting about six inches of ribbing, I changed to the Quarry yarn. Right away I discovered that I needed to use larger needles and have fewer stitches to work with. I also want to say that I had none of the previous problems with the yarn coming apart. I don’t know if I simply had a bad section of yarn before, or if I just never had to pull on it as much.

I did take notes when I was knitting, and here is how I began, but I didn’t figure out the decreases like this. Also my hat was getting too tall so I didn’t do the knit rows between the decreases at the top.

• Cast on 110 and K1, P1 around for 6 inches (not sure about the needle size because I didn’t write it down, but probably a size 5 or 6)
• Attach Quarry and use size 11 needle to knit around (size recommended by Quarry is 10 or 11)
• Here is where I had problems. Quarry is more bulky than the two yarns held together. The rest of the “pattern” notes are what I should have done – I have no idea what I actually did – until the top decreases.
• Reduce to 80 stitches: K4, K2tog around = 88 stitches first round, then K10, K2tog around, for 80.
• Knit around for about 2 / 2.5 inches then begin top decreases
• Crown: K8, K2tog, Place Marker – around
• Next row Knit around (I didn’t do these knit rounds because my hat was becoming too tall)
• Next decrease row: Knit to 2 stitches before marker and K2tog, around
• Continue by alternating a knit row and decrease row – using DPNs for last few rounds.
• Once there are only a few stitches left, finish as you do any hat.

Anyway, the hat is not perfect, but it is somewhat how I planned. The warmth of the wool on top will keep my head warm when the temperatures drop to 60 around here… Haha…

But seriously, this hat will be nice to wear when I visit NH in cooler months.

You may be able to see the tighter and smaller stitches just above the brim. Then, I switched to a larger needle and decreased stitches somewhat evenly around. I still ended up with too many stitches so the top of the hat is a bit puffy. It looks okay, and overall I am happy with it.

The hat was hand-washed and laid flat to dry and the Quarry wool is very soft – not at all scratchy. In fact I look forward to using it again with the gray color I still have. Not only does it finish nicely, this type of wool makes excellent cold-weather items. Now I understand why it’s chosen for sweaters, mittens and hats.

Skittle, my cat, came out to watch me try to take my selfies and hat pictures. It was a little warm to be wearing a hat like this one!