So as promised to a few of you, a full write up review on the Dependence Hat.

Pattern: Dependence Hat 

Specs: Size US 6 DPN’s

Malabrigo Merino Worsted in Bobby Blue: Roughly 5/8′th of a skien.

As you can probably already tell I changed the pattern.  I can’t stand a pointed top hat. I just can’t STAND IT!  So I ended up chopping off the cabling chart at row 40. I completely ignored rows 41-64.  Though I love the idea of continuing the cables to the crown I just didn’t have the math skills on the plane to deal. I thought about weaving the strands back & forth, but like I said, I was lacking in brain power at that moment.

Since row 40 leaves you at a 4×2 rib (for one row) I continued that with a simple right (left?) twist.

I continued knitting 6 rows for every twist 3 times before starting my decreases. I decreased like this. *K4, P2tog* repeat till end of round. Knit next 3 rounds as apears (knitting the knits & purling the purls). Then *SSK, K2tog, P1* repeat till end of round. Knit the next 2 rounds as they apear (knitting the knits & purling the purls).  This will leave you with a 2X1 rib.  *K2tog, P1* repeat till end of round. Knit one round as stitches appear. Next *K2tog* repeat for 2 rounds, break yarn. (NOTE: My hat came up a little bit on the short side so feel free to change this & add more rows before decreasing, like I said, I was on plane for the majority of this knit.)

Overall this pattern is quite good. The chart is well written & easy to follow. There were a few parts in the begining where I didn’t quite understand what was being said, but that was because there were supurflous directions when I am used to having quite sparce wording in my patterns.

What I would do diffrently: First off, though it looks uber damn cool to have the “V’s” come right down at the temple you loose the regular smaller gaged rib on this hat.  That means that with the malabrigo it’s already stretching out a little. After just 3 days of wear I could tell it wasn’t hugging my head right anymore.  I think this could easily be compensated just by starting out with smaller needles even for those first 4 rows. (I would also extend those 4 rows to about 8 next time).

Also, this hat is SUPER tight. I hate tight hats normally. I am a short haired chick & I hate anything that smashes my carefully coifed do. It’s not like you can fluff that back up either. It’s SMASHED in this hat. To combat this I would use US 8′s next time. Seriously, I don’t have  a big head either, my head is 21 inches & this hat barely squishes over it. I’d also like to state that I’m a LOOSE knitter & still made this hat tight. If you are sizing for a man’s head please gage!

All in all a great knit. Just enough of a challange with out getting tedious. I would suggest that you learn to cable with out a cable needle though because there is tons of 1X1 cables (Actually I think the whole hat is 1×1 cables!)

One last final note. See that indent in the knitting, right in the middle of my forhead? Yeah, add a few more rows to the inital rib, all sides do that & it’s super annoying.