FO report- Pirates Hat!

Little Man is really into pirates. He has a bunch of Playmobil pirates and a pirate ship that he plays with on a daily basis. The dialogue he makes up for the pirates is always fun to listen to- one pirate is usually a bad guy and another pirate is the good guy. They swordfight, swing from the ropes of the ship and eventually make friends so they can dig for the treasure together.

With LM's interest in pirates, I knew I had to make this hat as soon as I saw the pattern:

FO Report:
Pattern: "We Call Them Pirates" by Helloyarn, one size
started 12/15/06, finished 01/08/07
Yarn: Knitpicks' Telemark in black (master color) and cream (contrast color), one ball of each
Needles: Knitpicks' Options, size 3 circ. Balene size 3 DPNs
My Take: This was my first ever colorwork piece. It was actually pretty easy once I got the hang of knitting with the master color in my right hand & the contrast color in my left. I normally knit English, btw. It was difficult in the beginning to know how much yarn to leave for the floats on the back of the work. Plus my tension when knitting Continental is pretty wonky. So there are some pucker-y parts....but I think it looks alright anyway.

The pattern itself is well written. It calls for a provisional cast on at the brim, then you knit in 1x1 rib for a bit, then start the colorwork. Decreases (k2tog and ssk) are done in pattern at the top. After the hat is completed, you pick up the live sts on the provisional cast on and knit a lining on smaller size needles, which is finally tacked to the inside of the hat.
My only complaint is that the colorwork chart is SUPER confusing since it is in black and white: the master color is shown as white squares and the contrast color is shown as black squares. Unfortunately the MC I used is black, & the CC was white....so it was totally opposite of the chart (when I saw white squares, I needed to use black yarn). There was a lot of cussing before I finally decided to scan in the chart, reverse the colors and reprint it so white was white and black was black. MUCH better.

My Mods: Different yarn. Decided that the provisional cast on /lining was a lot of extra work & not really needed in So.Cal. (never gets that cold here anyways). Instead I did a cable cast on, knit in 1x1 rib for an inch or so and then started the colorwork.

I was running out of black/master color by the time I got to the top and so I had to skip the in-pattern decreases. Adding a few rows of plain white/contrast color enabled me to finish the hat with about one foot of black yarn to spare!

Originally I thought I'd have to felt the hat a bit to make it fit Little Man's head, but he has such a huge noggin that it fits just fine as is. It's quite stretchy and even fits Monkey Boy (tho it has a bit of a conehead effect):

All in all, a fun and pretty quick knit. This pattern is a great introduction to two color knitting, and it's easy enough for any intermediate knitter to follow. If you don't know how to knit with one color in each hand, this would be the perfect pattern to learn on.