Knittion Impossible - The Norwegian Baby Hat

I found This Hat  a while ago and was just waiting until I had the yarn I wanted to make it with. At a random trip to a JoAnn's Fabric (which is rarely I place I go to look for yarn as it is usually filled with nothing but acrylic yarn) a couple weeks ago I found the yarn I liked. Serenity Garden Yarn in the color Crocus. I also bought that same yarn in some other colorways, but I am saving that for another time. It is a Dralon Microfiber yarn and its only downside is that the strands can come apart a bit as you knit, but if you are aware of that it is easy to watch for and correct.

When I got home I was so excited to start the hat, but after trying to begin in I ran into a whole host of problems.

First try: The gauge was off, my babies have HUGE heads, so I made the largest size hat in the pattern. After getting the border made I discovered that the hat would have been loose and baggy on MY head. I took it apart.

Second try: The pattern was translated from Norwegian, and I think it may have been written for someone with more experience and knitting smarts. So when it said m1, k1, m1 I just assumed that I would make one left both times. As you can imagine this did not work well and the movement of the stitches was off. I took it apart. 

Third try: This time, I did the m1 right, k1, m1 left. Well, of course, the hat is upside down for those ways, so the right side was trying to go left, and the left was trying to go right and oh goodness it was ugly. I took it apart.

Fourth try: Well, this time I was counting the stitches from the "knit 2 tog tbl – psso" part. I was ending each of those combos on the same stitch that had come together on the previous reduction. Well, that put me off balance for the rest of it, so that my increases were in the wrong places as well! I took it apart.

Fifth try: I don't know what happened here, I got three rows in and something was wrong. I took it apart.

Sixth try: I have learned from all my mistakes and finally I did it right!!!!!! I DID IT!!!

The Decreases done properly

The increases done properly

The finished hat

 The blog that I found the pattern on (through the Ravelry link) is called Grosblog and here is the pattern itself.  I have to wonder if some of the detail was lost in translation or if it was not there to begin with.

But in the end, I made a hat, I learned a lot, and now I want to make another one, but I have a baby blanket to finish first!