Pussyhat Project

For the past few weeks I've been knitting hats with the Pussyhat Project for women who will be walking in the Women's March On Washington (or Boston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago .....)

The Pussyhat Project aims to:

1. Provide the people of the Women's March on Washington D.C. a means to make a unique collective visual statement which will help activists be better heard.
2. Provide people who cannot physically be on the National Mall a way to represent themselves and support women's rights.

The Pussyhat Project provides a free pattern but, of course, I had to find and tweak a pattern to fit my personality. I found this delightful free pattern for a child's cat ear hat. I was immediately drawn to the shaping done in the crown of the hat and the stitching which define the ears. I changed the center cable pattern and that necessitated adjusting the crown shaping but otherwise the pattern is essential the same.

Here are the notes and pattern for my hat. I think I've knit this hat enough times now that the pattern is accurate. It is not pattern tested, tech edited or have a chart. I also have not yet taken the time to explain stitches but if you're an experienced knitter (especially with cables) you should have no problem.

Gauge: Resizing the hat to fit an adult head was an easy fix by substituting a larger weight yarn. I used aran weight yarn (Red Heart Super Saver & Lion Brand Vanna's Choice both worked well) with size 8 needles but you can use any yarn and needles that will give you a gauge of 16 stitches for every 4".

The pattern is written for an adult small. Follow the numbers in (parenthesis) for a medium/large hat which fit most of the adult women who have tried it on.

Pattern (4 rows):
Row 1: (K16(20), p2, C2B, C2F, p2, C4B, C4F, p2, C2B, C2F, p2) twice
Row 2: (K16(20), p2, k4, p2, k8, p2, k4, p2) twice
Row 3: (K16(20), p2, C2F, C2B, p2, k8, p2, C2F, C2B, p2) twice
Row 4: Repeat row 2.

Hat Body:
Cast on 72(80) stitches, join to knit in a circle.
Work 1 x 1 ribbing for 5 rows.
Next row: M1 after every 9(10) stitches. 80(88) stitches.

Repeat pattern rows 1-4 8(9) times and then work Row 1 once more before beginning crown decreases.

Crown decreases:
Row 1: [K16(20), *p2, k4, p2*, ssk, k4, k2tog, repeat from * to * once more] twice. 76(84) stitches.
Row 2: [K16(20), *p2, C2F, C2B, p2*, ssk k2, k2tog, repeat from * to *] twice. 72(80) stitches.
Row 3: [K16(20), *p2tog, k1, k2tog, k1, p2tog*, ssk, k2tog, repeat from * to * once more] twice 56(64)stitches.
Row 4: [K16(20), *p1, k3tog, p1,* k2tog, repeat from * to * once more] twice 46(54) stitches.

Knit 8(10) Flip hat wrong side out & 3 needle bind-off.
Sew ears.