Worsted Big Fish Hat

A friend of mine asked if I could knit him a nice warm hat to wear fishing. He didn't really have any other specifications other than it might be black or brown, but definitely warm. I looked around a little for patterns and found this Big Fish hat pattern by Northern Purly Girl. I really liked the fish pattern, but I wanted to use Wool Ease Worsted instead of Wool Ease Thick and Quick, so I was going to have a completely different gauge.

It was time for...MATH!

After knitting a test swatch, measuring the gauge, and doing some figuring, I cast on 90 stitches using Wool Ease Oxford Grey (MC) and two size 8 circular needles and continued thusly:

Rnds 1-10: *k1, p1* ribbing
Rnds 11-13: Knit
Switch to Wool Ease Fisherman (CC2)**
Rnd 14: *k11, m1* repeat 8 times, end with k2 (98 sts)
Rnd 15: *k14, pm* repeat to end of round
Rnds 16-24: Using CC2 and Pines Print (CC1), follow chart in original pattern, repeating the pattern 7 times (Remember to knit loosely!)
Rnd 25-26: Knit with CC2**
Switch to MC
Rnd 27: Knit
Rnds 28-32: Knit
Rnd 33: *k12, k2tog* repeat to end of round (reducing round = 91 sts)
Rnd 34: Knit
Rnd 35: *k11, k2tog* repeat to end of round (84 sts)
Rnd 36: Knit
Rnd 37: *k10, k2tog* repeat to end of round (77 sts)
Rnd 38: Knit
Rnds 39-48: Continue alternating a reducing round (with one fewer stitch before the k2tog each time) and a regular knit round (Stitch count will be 70, 63, 56, 49, 42)
Rnd 49: *k4, k2tog* repeat to end of round (35 sts)
Rnd 50: *k3, k2tog* repeat to end of round (28 sts)
Rnd 51: *k2, k2tog* repeat to end of round (21 sts)
Rnd 52: *k1, k2tog* repeat to end of round (14 sts)
Use kitchener stitch to sew together remaining stitches.

**If I'd paid closer attention to Northern Purly Girl's pattern, I would have switched to Pines Print (CC1)

This made a lovely hat, but it was a little slouchy and decided that it was too thin to keep my fishing buddy warm enough. My daughter's friend quickly commandeered this first one, while I started over using a double-strand of yarn. I also used Black as my main color (MC) and Oxford Grey as my contrast color 2 (CC2). To avoid the slouchiness of the above hat, I cast on fewer stitches and ended with fewer rounds altogether. This gave me a nice snug hat.

C/o 84 with MC

Rnds 1-9: *k1, p1* ribbing
Rnds 10-12: Knit***
Rnd 13: *k12, k2tog* repeat to end of round (78)
Switch to CC2
Rnd 14: *k7, k2tog* repeat to end of round (70)
Rnd 15: *k14, pm* repeat to end of round
Rnds 16-24: Using CC2 and CC1, follow the chart in the original pattern, repeating the pattern 5 times
Rnd 25-26: Knit with CC2
Switch to MC
Rnd 27: *k10, pm*, removing markers that are in the wrong places
Rnd 28: *k8, k2tog* repeat to end of round (63)
Rnd 29: Knit
Rnds 30-37: Continue alternating a reducing round (with one fewer stitch before the k2tog each time) and a regular knit round (Stitch count will be 56, 49, 42, 35)
Rnd 38: *k3, k2tog* repeat to end of round (28)
Rnd 39: *k2, k2tog* repeat to end of round (21 sts)
Rnd 40: *k1, k2tog* repeat to end of round (14 sts)
Use kitchener stitch to sew together remaining stitches.

***At this point, I was worried that the hat was going to be too big again, so I did a couple of rounds to reduce the circumference. You might just c/o 70 st to start with and not reduce on rounds 13 & 14.