Another good hat

Earlier this fall, my boys’ scoutmaster announced that he was retiring from troop leadership. I was very sad, because he’s been an excellent influence in my kids’ lives… but I also understand, because his own boys have long since graduated college and he has put in a good, long run. An urge to knit him something welled up in me (you know that feeling, right?). I immediately thought of the 1898 hat, because it was released by the Seaman’s Church Institute and designed for mariners. In addition to being a scoutmaster, this hat recipient is retired from the Coast Guard. A mariner’s hat was perfect!

He looks pretty happy with it.

I made some modifications from the first hat and the pattern as written. I had the good scoutmaster try on Boy 1’s hat, and I noticed it was a little roomy on him. So I went down to a US 6 needle. On the headband section, I slipped the first stitch of every row purlwise with yarn in front, then passed the yarn to the back between the needles – this made a clean line along the picked up stitches for the crown. On the crown decreases, I eliminated the plain knit round after the [K6 K2tog] round and thereafter (which eliminates 5 knit rounds total). This eliminates the slight pointiness in the pattern as written. Finally, when grafting the headband, I used the garter stitch graft on most of the seam but reverted to a stockinette graft (plain old Kitchener) on the 3 stitches in the middle. This looks better than the first hat did!

This was a quick project and one I was so happy to make. This scout will always be prepared for cold and windy weather!