Knitting Rules! (21 page)

Sew together the beginning and ending edges to form a tube of sorts, kind of like a very wide headband
. This seam marks the center back of the hat.

Thread a piece of yarn and run the needle through the top row of stitches along one edge, then gather them up to make a traditional-looking cap
. Pull the thread tight and fasten off. Celebrate not just a good-looking hat, but that you didn't have to knit 57 life-draining inches on a scarf. (Not that I don't like scarves; they have their place. As a matter of fact, see
chapter 7
.)

Head sizes are extremely variable. Hats don't have to fit exactly, as knitting tends to be stretchy, but it's better for a hat to be a little big than too small. A big hat still goes
on, but a small hat … well, it's better for it to be too big. Babies grow quickly, some knitters knit slowly. You might want to factor that in when you choose a size. There is little more infuriating to a knitter than having someone outgrow something while it's on the needles.

There are going to be exceptions. My husband has a 66-cm (26 inch) head, and near as I can tell, although that's pretty big-headed according to the chart, he seems fairly normal. (A little odd, yes, but he doesn't look funny or anything.)

An advantage of this variety of human head sizes is that if you manage to knit something between 12 and 27 inches (30 and 70 cm), you'll find someone it'll fit. Cultivate a wide circle of friends.

Sew together the top edges in a straight line and wear the hat with the points front and back. Try it. It has a romantic,
Dr. Zhivago
, Russian-winter sort of feel, especially if you knit it wide enough to have a fold-up brim and you rename yourself Lara.

Sew it flat and attach tassels to each point so you can wear the points side to side. (Admittedly, except for those rare “playful” days, this is a look that wears better on a six-year-old than on a 40-year-old CEO, but you be the judge.)

Variation 1

Knit it in other yarns
. Because this hat has such a flexible pattern, there's no reason you can't change the gauge every time you make one. A hat knit out of super-chunky yarn is going to look way different from one out of fingering weight, even if you knit them in the same manner.

Variation 2

Try it in other stitches
. Keep in mind that this hat has no ribbing. This means that the one I made in stockinette stitch rolled faster than a hippie at Woodstock. Hats that are knit “around” need flat stitches so they will lie flat on your forehead. Seed stitch, moss stitch, basket weave, and patterns with a mix of knit and purl all work.

Variation 3

How about cables or Fair Isle?
This hat has no decreases to botch your math. If you keep the first few stitches on the brim side in your non-rolling-stitch choice, the rest of the hat can be Fair Isle or cables. Think of the possibilities. (All I can think of is a penguin hat, but that's me.)

Variation 4

Lace.
Same rules as for Fair Isle, but other than keeping that brim-edge solid, you could get really funky with it. Remember, of course, that lace has holes and is therefore
not the warmest choice for a hat, but it would still be neat provided you aren't equipping an Arctic expedition.

Variation 5

Add stuff.
Incorporate embroiderery on the hat; sew on buttons; get wild with tassels. What would you do to the hat if you could do anything? (
Hint
: You
can
do anything.)

Before you launch a hat-knitting extravaganza, bolstered by the glowing things I've said about them, consider the following caveats.

Rule 1

Babies will wear hats — briefly
. Mostly, a baby uses a hat to teach Mum and Dad a rollicking game of fetch.

Rule 2

Older children
will only wear hats if they are a) cheap or b) ugly. The chances that your child will wear a hat you knit for him decreases exponentially with the class of wool and the seriousness of the effort required to knit it. For example: If you spend 50 hours knitting a hat with a Fair Isle band of frolicking monkeys (your child's favorite animal) and you special-ordered the perfect blue from Germany so that it could be in your little sweetie's favorite colors
and
it cost $45 to get it, your child, and I really can't stress this enough … Your child is not going to wear that hat. If, however, your crazy aunt Mabel dug around in her basement and came up with some plastic yarn from 1972 and spent 10 minutes knitting the ugliest, most unflattering hat you've ever seen — I mean, so ugly that it has superpowers — and then your aunt Mabel gives it to your kid and you think to yourself (feeling a
little shame), “Well, the joke's on you Aunt Mabel; Billy stuffs hand-knit hats behind the hamster cage,” then Billy is going to wear that hat every day until he outgrows it and then cry for more.

Rule 3

Teenagers do not wear hats
except in summer, while skateboarding, or as a fashion statement designed to humiliate or annoy you. Perfect example: a lovely 14-year-old girl who insists that if she doesn't wear a black skullcap with flames on it along with a powder blue party dress to your great-aunt Mavis's formal dinner party, then she will
die
. Remember the threat of frostbite means nothing to a teenager. He'll laugh at frostbite. He'll laugh at you. (Put the hat in the backpack. At –40 degrees, he'll put it on as long as there's no chance that you'll see him. Never speak of this.)

Rule 4

Most men
will wear a fairly wide assortment of hats. I find this somewhat surprising, as these same men are inflexible in all other aspects of their wardrobe. It's a happy little quirk that men who look at you like you're trying to get them killed if you suggest a nice green shirt will become attached to odd, distinctive, or unusual hats. This tendency has not been sufficiently studied by anthropologists.

Rule 5

Women are difficult
. A hat must be a flattering shape, the perfect colors, and not violate the hairstyle underneath. Women are very, very picky about hats. If I'm thinking about striking out and making a woman a hat, we have a long talk about the realities of my hat-knitting first.