Shoal Bay Slouch - Part 4, More knitting

Yesterday afternoon, I went to the post office and dropped off the last 2 boxes for my conference next week and that means my work week is finished and I can knit.

When I set my project aside, I had finished the braided edge, the ribbing and the first few rounds of the main body of the hat. (Part 1, part 2 & part 3 have those details.)

I completed the first repeat of the pattern and then the second repeat and then set it aside for the night. I had come to the point where I needed to plan the crown and decided I should do that in the morning. (I tend to make mistakes when I'm tired.)

Back again after a good nights sleep, I set about planning my crown decreases. I've already figured out that I'll make 8 decreases on each decrease round and I'm planning to make the decreases at the same point in each round. My math is 112 ÷ 8 = 14 stitches between each initial decrease location and 8 stitches remaining (1 between each decrease location) after 13 decrease rounds.

Positioning 14 stitches between each decrease location is easy enough. However, I want to make one more repeat of my pattern stitch so I need to allow for the end-of-round marker movement due to my jogless joins. At the end of the jogless joins, I want my end-of-round marker to be at a decrease location. That means, I need to factor in the jogless joins AND the decreases during those rounds to position my decrease markers correctly.

I'll have 4 more jogless joins which will move my end-of-round marker 4 stitches to the left. So, I need 4 stitches for the jogless joins. What about the decrease that will occur over these rounds?

I've noticed that most hat patterns start with decreases every other round and then switch to decreases every round. That's what I'll do. I'll plan that all the decreases during the rounds with jogless joins will be every-other-round decreases. That means I need to allow for 4 decreases in addition to the jogless joins. The decreases will be k2tog just before each decrease marker and 4 x 2 = 8.

If I've done my math correctly, I need to start with a decrease marker 4 + 8 = 12 stitches to the left of my end-of-round marker. The rest of the decrease markers will be 14 stitches apart.

Since I don't have decrease markers placed and I don't want to just slip all the stitches around simply to place the markers, I'll place markers during my first round. Yeah, it's a bit of a rub-your-belly and pat-your-head at the same time thing, but hey, I can do it!

So, for my first round I ... k10, k2tog, pm ... then k12, k2tog, pm the rest of the way around ... and ended with k2, jogless join. And here I am ...

I think I've made a mistake. I can't believe my end-of-round marker (yellow) will make it all the way over to my first decrease marker (blue) over the next 6 rounds.

This seems like a good time to take a break. Besides, I was planning to make an apple crisp today anyway. I'll get that done and then come back to more hat knitting.