To fail and fail again

When instructions say they are failproof, or simple or any adjective indicating that success is a cert you can be certain of one thing ... and that is that it will not go to plan.

I wanted a slouchy beret shaped hat thingy to go with the socks I made for K. The socks by the way were difficult and I changed some stuff in the instructions but they've worked - so I am not a knitting dunce. So there. However, the hat instructions were simple, knitting it from the top in the round would avoid all that messy tinkering at the end. To make it warm I added a thread of green alpaca to the sock yarn (Sweden is cold in winter) which matches the colour way and gives it a mottled rather than stripey effect. All seemed well as I cast on and fiddled a bit with the first few increases. Then I lost a needle (still haven't found it) which proved challenging as I now had more stitches than the needles could realistically cope with. I improvised with a long needle (not a good idea). The instructions called for a number of decreases before you got to the end ribbing and this seemed like a fab idea, giving the hat some shape. I cast off, tried it on and realised I had made the equivalent of a head bucket. A very shallow bucket. It's so depressing I couldn't take a picture.

This failure puzzled me. I went back over the instructions and decided that I must have got something wrong. Ripping it back without understanding what to do to correct matters struck me as foolish so as it was a fast knit I cast on for a purple hat for myself (also with sock yarn and alpaca). I knitted this one on bigger needles (can you see where things might go wrong here?) and more slouchy. I decreased before the ribbing as before (taking notes) and cast off. The 'hat' would not even go on my head. It is far too small. Now either I expect to make the same mistake especially when I go out of my way to exagerrate the problems (bigger needles people, more increases!!!) or that following the instructions will leave me with something wearable. Making an entirely different type of failure is not helping me figure out the first one.

So I ripped back hat the 2nd and reknitted the end and cast off and now it sodding fits. I am no closer to understanding why the first one did not work. grumble guess i'll just rip it back and reknit humpf