“What’s on the needles now?”, I hear you cry! Erm actually it’s “on the hook” – Crochet hook that is.

I’ve got a little Hat Crazy the last couple of weeks – it started with this!

The Rowan Margarida Hat in Rowan Cotton Glace (or Handknit Cotton.)

I knew I had a bag of left over and “intercepted” Cotton Glace in my stash and I love a good sun hat!

Where the Huge Cotton Glace stash originated

I had this array of colours left over from Florence (minus the lilas and purple which were donated to a friend’s project years ago)

Florence was this lovely from 2007 (I have no idea what was going on with my hair!)

Click here to see Florence posts if you are interested: Florence blog posts

I also had some leftovers from Iris.

This beauty:

Click here for Iris posts: Iris blog posts

The “Intercepted yarn” was because Judie, from the Guilty Knitters, had a disasterous navy, white and lime green stripe project that I witnessed her vigorously flinging in towards the dustbin after a string of pattern, design, gauge and sizing issues… I made a dive across the room, worthy of a Premier League football goalie, to save it.

“If you want it, you can unpick it – I never want to see it again!”, said Judie. I helpfully removed it from her presence unpicked it and stashed it.

I checked – this was 2008.

15 years later, I found the right project for it!! Patience is a virture 😛

First (Amusing) attempt

I loved that pattern and in 3 days made the green, orange and gold hat – What I didn’t do was pay attention to the size 😳 My tension was spot on but the hat came up at the stated 56cm circumference my head is 53cm – despite the artfully styled picture – it was too big 🙁

Laugh at a selection of more honest photos and progress shots!

How to make it smaller

The pattern only came in one size but I worked out how to downsize for me. (If you don’t have the pattern this might be confusing)

The original pattern had 64 “stars” of star stitch around the crown. I needed 58 stars. I did the flat circle at the top of the hat according to the pattern except the last row, row 22. Row 22, I only increased to 117 stitches – (58 stars x2) +1 stitch =117stitches. (you can use this to work out your own size hat 🙂 )

I did all the rows of the body of the hat the same and mimiced the frequence of the increases in the brim (i.e increase after 3 stitches then 4 stitches and repeat.) I just didn’t stress about the final number of stitches.

I did find the brim pulled a little tight so on the 3rd to last half treble round, I increses every 9 stitches rather than 9 stitches, then 10 stitches) It made all the difference.

Second amusing attempt

I eagerly stormed ahead with version two, which as I had a lot of navy and white yarn (Thanks Judie!) I decided to do a very beach inpired stripe version.

The crown fitted – Yay! 😀

My lovely sister, Carol, had now been promised a hat and she is very fond of blue so I added some pale pale blue too and diligently continued with the stripes.

I hated it – I think it looked like I should be working on a deli couter serving up sliced ham!

Attempt number three – the remodelled brim

I was determined to get a wearable hat out of this adventure!

I ripped out the brim and remade it in navy only with a pale blue edge – MUCH better I think.

Fourth and final attempt

Flushed with success, I made one more versionthat has only been finished today – White orange and navy.

I think the perseverance was worth it!

Completed Knit Report
Name:	Margarida Hat Small Margarida Another Small Margarida
Pattern:	I bought the PDF of the Margaida pattern directly from the Rowan site for £4 – here: https://knitrowan.com/en/products/zb331-margarida-hat-a You can buy it as a Ravelry download too but it’s priced in dollars and comes out as £5.65 (the pennies matter!) The Ravelry entry is here : https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/margarida-2
Yarn:	Rowan Cotton Glace
Pattern Problems:	Too big for my head – see resizing notes.
Pattern Modifications:	Resized and experimented with colour combinations
Washing and Wearing:	It feels like it will give a little – cotton has little memory so make it a bit too small if in doubt.
Knit It Again???:	Probably but I need a crochet break!
Difficulty:	Pattern and star stitch easy – getting it to fit – fiendish!
Rating:	4/5 because I had so much fun playing with it and I love the finished hat.
Other Postings Relating To This One:	None