The Largest Hat In The World

 So I finally finished a gift for someone who does not read this blog.

Could you tell this was a gift?  It looks a wee bit big, eh?

The thing is, I've made my dad two hats now, and both are ridiculously too small.  And he wears them both, because he's awesome, but they look absurd.  One sits on the top of his head like a Hawaiian yarmulke, and the other is so tight it just pops off.

So.  Here goes Round 3.  I made Thorpe, and at first I was all, yes!  A quick and easy hat I can finish in less than a day, booyah, knitted gift in the box, baby.  But then I saw there was a stranded version.  So I had to make that one, even though of course it was going to take twice as long.

It's an addiction, what can I say.

And there was another problem--it was only available in medium, which obviously wasn't going to work.  So I went up two needle sizes, and used leftover Cascade Ecological from my Owls.  And I don't know if I knit ridiculously tightly...okay, I know that I knit ridiculously tightly, but I thought the two needle sizes would at least make up for it!  But it was too small for Willow, for crying out loud.  So I cast on half again as many stitches (so if you've knit the pattern, or are thinking about doing so, that makes six panels instead of four), and knit an inch longer than the large size specified.  As you can see, it's nice and ginormous.

When I finished the body, I decreased back down to the original large size stitch count, and carried on from there, sticking with US 11s.

If this isn't big enough, I think there's something wrong with my dad's head.  I'm just saying.