Child's Patterned Hat

After knitting so many infant hats for charity last week, I had to make a hat for my 3-year-old. He had informed me that I'd made all 'his' baby hats too small for him and that I needed to make them bigger. He needed a new hat. He lost his toque when we visited Lowe's last week, and it never showed up in the lost and found bin.

First, I measured his head: it's 19"/48cm around and the hat must be at least 7"/18cm tall in order to cover his ears well. I am getting a gauge of about 5 stitches to the inch with worsted weight wool(about 20 stitches to 4"/10cm), so that would be about 95 stitches. Make that 96 and you have a number divisible by 2, 3, 4, 6 and 8-that means more choices of motifs. I don't need a really dense fabric here in the warmer climate of California, so a size 7 circular needle is fine. Add in a size 6 for the ribbing and a set of double pointed needles for closing the crown. I used the same basic procedure that I used in the baby hats.

Cast on 96 stitches on a 16"/40cm size 6US/4mm circular needle.
Join without twisting the stitches to begin knitting in the round.
Work knit one purl one ribbing until piece measures 1.25"/3cm.

Change to a 16"/40cm size 7US/4.5mm needle and begin knitting stockinette stitch (knit every round) until the hat measures 6"/15cm long, including ribbing; at the same time, begin working color patterns from the chart or those of your own choice.

Begin decreasing using a guideline of 8 stitches evenly distributed every 2 rounds 11 times. (I decreased 16 stitches about every 4 rounds 5 times and 8 stitches every 2 rounds once to make it fit in between the pattern rounds of color motifs) You want to place your decreases so that they don't interfere in the color design. So, work decreases until you have 8 stitches left, changing to short double pointed size 7US/4.5mm needles when needed. K2tog across round. Make I-cord using remaining 4 stitches until the cord is about an inch long. Cut the yarn and thread it through the stitches with a tapestry needle to fasten it off. Weave in all the ends.

This hat fits my toddler with extra room on top for growth. It stretches and can be worn by older children and teens. It even stretches to fit me a little snugly. This would make a great charity knitting project. Enjoy!

P.S. more charts to use for this hat here and here.