June 2012 #1 - Here Fishy Fishy

I wanted to celebrate World Oceans Day on June 8th by knitting a hat to commemorate the day. Sort of like a watery Earth Day tribute. I thought the popular Fish Hat pattern would be perfect, but I really didn't want to knit such an involved hat. Luckily I found this clever adaption. Unfortunately the pattern is not so well written (perhaps it’s just me).

First, I felt the need to change the c/o to 88 in order to have an even k2p2 all the way around. This in turn changed the decrease set-up round to have 22 stitches between each place marker.

The crown is then decreased to 22 stitches and the tail work begins with the first three rounds of straight knitting. The next round calls for k17 and placing 11 sts on a st holder. I'm no math major, but that’s 28 stitches (and I only have 22). So, I increased evenly for a round to create enough stitches to make up the difference.

If I were to make the hat again, I would want to evenly separate the stitches so that the two fin halves are more evenly knit. Perhaps it is more fish like that one is larger than the other, but I think the disparity between the two is just a bit too much.

The pattern is Half Fish Beanie and available on the designer's blog.  I used Berroco Comfort in Copen Blue, Chambray, Dried Plum, Lidfors, and Pearl on a size 6 16" circular needle and a set of 6 dpns. Stitches used are knit, purl, k2tog, ssk, and kfb. The directions do not specify how to sew the tail piece together so I used a kitchener stitch for the end stitches and then whip stitched the edges, merging everything together as best I could. I love the look of stripes, even if I hate weaving in all the ends. I'm super happy with the particular results. Except for the crazy yellow shouting hello you can hardly notice where the colors join.