So while I've been considering your nearly unanimous advice to leave my granny square blanket as is (you do know that a pillow out of a different colour won't match the blanket, right?) (yeah, I'm leaning toward starting the blanket over), it's gotten cold here in Vancouver.

Now that I go to work outside of my living room, I suddenly discovered why slouchy hats are so convenient – no hat head!

So I whipped this puppy up. The pattern is Phannie, by Phoebe Gaughan, and the yarn is Sweetgeorgia Yarns Speed Demon. I used a 4.5mm hook.

The stitching was pretty dense, but I had a hunch the fabric would relax after washing and blocking and it did.

I made a few modifications. Most notably, I worked the post-stitch increases differently. The pattern called for them to be worked as "FPdc around post of next dc, dc in same dc," but it's really awkward to make a dc in a stitch whose post has already been worked around. So I did the opposite: I first made a dc in the next stitch, then worked around the post of the same stitch. I worked the beginning and end of those rounds to accommodate this change in stitch order.

I worked an extra round before beginning the decrease rounds.

The bottom of the hat was too small (even though I hit gauge), so working the band of single crochets made it too tight to wear. Instead, I worked one round of double crochet, which probably wasn't the best choice since it resulted in a convenient place for the hat to bend, creating a little ridge when I wear it. Anyway, I followed that with a few rounds of half-double crochet, and the hat fits perfectly.

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