Garter Cuff Hat - The Rest of the Story

....and round, and round. I really would rather be throwing in some sort of pattern, but 1) most of the middle will be covered by the cuff and 2) this is for a boy who has reached the age where he probably would not wear anything that drew attention to itself, so forget the idea of bobbles, thank you very much. Finally the decreases (about which more below).



Finished, washed and drying.



Done. Plain, but serviceable.

Now about the decreases. I wanted a nicely rounded top: not pointy, not gathered. So I used a formula I first found in Knitting in the Nordic Tradition by Vibeke Lind (wonderful book).

She says to divide into 10 or 12 parts, but since I had 66 sts I divided into 11 parts of 6 sts each; and from there it went like this:
(k4, k2tog) 11 times
Knit 4 rounds plain.
(k3, k2tog) 11 times
Knit 3 rounds plain.
(k2, k2tog) 11 times.
Knit 2 rounds plain.
(k1, k2tog) 11 times.
Knit 1 round plain.
(k2tog) 11 times.
Since I still had 11 sts at this point I did and additional round of K1, k2tog 5 times, but I could have just gathered up the 11 sts.

This can work with anywhere from 8 to 12 sections. The fewer the sections, the more elongated the top will be.

And while I'm on the subject of hats, Jeri has a neat little measuring trick on her Dollar Hat post.