Tundra Hat

Now I know that winter is over, but I saw this hat on another blog and I thought if I dont make it now I will forget about it. Plus, I have been looking for a good reliable hat pattern, and this hat was kind of what I had in my minds eye.

Here is what I saw. http://knittyinpink.blogspot.com/2007/11/glam-rock-ski-hat-aka-vinces-tundra-hat.html It was a take off, from a hat on the Mighty Bosh, wich a few people were making, but I loved the style of the crown and the long ear flaps. I thought - perfect!!

Knitty had also posted a PDF of what she did, so I followed that.

The wool she used is recommended to be knit on a 6mm needled, but her pattern notes stated that she had knitted on 4.5mm needles. She also stated that the hat made was purposely large. So with that in mind, and also only having DK yarn, I thought that if i knitted on a 4.5mm needle also, the hat might turn out the right sort of size. This was a guess, and didnt bother with a swatch. I thought i would be able to tell quite quickly if it was drastically out, as I started on the earflaps first, and they would have been to the wrong scale if the yarn and needle size didnt suit.

So I knitted it up fairly quickly, just taking my time as I know that I wont wear this untill later on this year! Here is how it turned out.



I am really happy with this hat, it fits, slightly over sized, which is good for when im snowboarding as it will need to accomodate my goggles, and also be easy to take on and off without messing my hair up!!

The earflaps are the perfect length - I think i will be quite cozy in this one.


The weight of the hat, and thickness of the knit - about spot on for what i want to use it for. I already know that the yarn will be mega warm, as this is the same yarn i used for the aphrodite jumper.


Some points to note - this was the first time i used the double backward loop method for casting on. I think this possibly was a mistake for me, as the edge then became quite loose. As you can see from the pictures, where i crocheted over the edges, they are still puckering out a bit.


Also, the earflaps still curling a bit, but the crochet edge has helped a lot to stablize them.


The only other thing I might want to try again on this hat is the crown. I do like it, but mine doesnt seem quite the same as the one on knittys site. Now this could quite well be because i used a different weight yarn and therefore knitted up smaller. If you compare my hat to knittys, the crown shaping is quite a bit longer and kind of frames the crown up to a point. where mine just neatly nips in and blends in to a round head!!


I think if i was to redo this, I would think about adjusting the increases and decreses - maybe start earlier and even not work in a square decrease but maybe a oblong one to make the side panels smaller than the top and bottom panels. Now if that didnt make sense to anyone else, it did to me!!