The first change I made was right from the start, with a small peak.
I started off with 9 dc in a magic ring, then did the next round in 9 dc at well. The next round was increased with 12 hdc. After that, I started working the front post double stitches. I can't remember where I placed the increases, but whenever I did, it was with an hdc worked after a fpdc stitch was done. In the next round, that hdc would have a fpdc stitched worked around it, making for a crown of solid cables.
Looking at this view, you can see why our alternative name for this is "the nipple hat." ;-)
The first round I made without any more increases was done in green hdc. That's when I finally stopped to count and see how many stitches I had in the round. I can't remember the final number, but it was divisible by four, which is why you can see a red cable over the green at every 4th stitch, and that it was a higher number than the Red and Green Cables hats. Though it was a higher number of stitches, doing all but the increase stitches in fpdc made it actually a touch smaller than the Red Cables hat, which was done with the same size hook.
Note: When changing colours, I simply dropped the yarn and took up the new colour. This left a vertical row visible on the inside of the hat. Hmm... now that I think about it, I should have taken a photo of how the inside of this hat looks. Will have to keep that in mind.
The first red round after the first green round was made up of 3 hdc followed by 1 front post triple crochet stitch (fptc), going around a corresponding stitch in the last round of red in the crown. The next round in red worked 1 hdc into each hdc of the previous round, and 1 fpdc around the fptc of the previous round. That was followed by another round of green, this time doing all fpdc. When I switched back to red again, I worked a pattern of 3 fpdc, 1 fptc, with the fptc worked around a fpdc just after where the previous fptc had been worked. I did another round of all fpdc in red, then switched to green again. This third round of green alternated 1 hdc and 1 fpdc.
The next rounds are hidden by the upturned cuff. The next round switched back to red, this time working an hdc into the fpdc of the previous green round, and a fpdc around the hdc of the previous green round. Another round of just fpdc in red was worked.
The last rounds before the cuff of the hat were done in green. One round of all fpdc was done, then another round of hdc was worked *in between* each stitch of the previous round.
The ridged cuff of the hat was then worked in the same manner as the Red and Green Cables hats, using a starting chain of 9 stitches, making for a cuff 8 stitches wide. To alternate colours, I would just drop the yarn from one colour, then pick up the next, making sure that the yarn was pulled snug whenever I changed back again. When the cuff is turned up, it naturally folds at the last round of green hdc, so what you're seeing in this photo is almost the entire width of the cuff.
As you can see by the instructions, there was really no rhyme or reason to making this hat. I was just playing with cables and wanted to see what an all-over cable design would look like. With so many fpdc used, the entire hat is actually a touch smaller than usual for this size of yarn and the hook size used. It's a tighter fit than the Red Cables hat, even though the same hook size is used, and the crown is larger, with a greater total number of stitches in the rounds making up the sides. In fact, it would probably fit an older child better than an adult.
Would I make this hat again? Probably not. Am I glad I made it? Yes. It was fun to wing it as I went along. The closest thing I had to a plan in making this was "use lots of front post stitches." That and I wanted to use up some of the left over yarn from the previous hats.
Which, by the way, each needed 2 skeins of yarn, though more than half a skein of each colour was left over when they were done, leaving me plenty to make this one.
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