Four Cornered Round Hat: Graduation edition

Graduation is next week, at least in my neck of the woods!

If one starts with the idea of the Four Cornered Round Hat of the previous post, it wouldn't be too hard to knit up a mortarboard style hat for graduation. Well, if you're in a school with this particular traditional, anyway. The hard part would be finding the yarn in the right color. Somehow I've not seen the Sugar'n Cream in black although it is available.

Here is a plan for such a hat which will utilize the reverse direction plan:

This would probably take 3-4 skeins of yarn rather than just 2.

Cast on 100 stitches for a 22" head. Join taking care not to twist the cast-on. Knit a few rows straight for 1-1.5" then start decreasing to fit the crown. Place markers every 25 stitches and decrease at the markers every other row until only 14 are left on each side.

It is likely one will need to add a few short rows to the corners to help the circle to square transition. Try: K2, switch direction, S1, K3, switch direction, S1, K to the next marker for each corner. Rather hard to say. Increase on the next row and continue increasing following the instructions for the hat top.

The mortarboard portion needs to go out to about 12". For the gauge, this is when each side reaches 61 stitches but measure to be sure. Purl a row then knit 3 rows and purl another.

The top will eventually need something to hold it stiff. Now is the easiest time to put it in, but that might not fit on the needles still. A bit of coat hanger or some cardboard would be the obvious cheap stiffeners. A lot of starch at the end might do it too. Decrease as instructed for the bottom of the hat but continue until there are 3 stitches on each side. Decrease once more on each side. If needed to fill the middle, knit one more row. Pull the yarn through the live loops at the end.