Ostensibly

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If you're seeing this page, you've caught this pattern on one of the handful of days every year when it's available! It's going away shortly. Read on for more details.

A few years ago I got overwhelmed by my back catalog, retired most of my earlier work, and launched Tiny Nonsense. That gave me space to make Cool New Stuff! But some people missed the earlier things, so I make many of the retired patterns available for a few days once or twice a year. If you're reading this, today is one of those days. If you've been missing this pattern, this is your chance to get it before it goes away again.

If you want to hear when the patterns make their occasional return (or see what else I'm up to), you can always do that at tinynonsense.com!

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Ostensibly adj to all outward appearances, apparently

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I am, by pretty much any measure I can think of, an adult. I'm old enough to drive and vote and drink. I have credit cards and a mortgage and even a retirement plan. I manage to keep cats and houseplants alive for years at a time.

But, despite all these outward signs of adulthood, I'm still unable to resist this hat. I just want to grab it and say 'oooooh, pretty colors' every time I see it. If you share my weakness, you'll have a great time with this pattern!

It includes all the stuff you'd expect (lovely, clear instructions for how to make the hat in lots of different sizes). But you'll also find instructions for making all three of those glorious pompoms (including how to make them detachable so you can swap them out as the mood strikes you). And there is info on how to make an awesome braid instead of weaving in your ends (because weaving in ends might just be a bit *too* grown up for this hat). And in case you don't share my weakness for the cheerful colors, there's a peek at a more subdued color option if you want something a bit more mellow.

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The hat is written in four sizes (castons of 112, 120, 128, and 136 stitches), and you should feel free to adjust your gauge a bit to fine tune the fit of the hat. Just be sure that you’re working at a gauge that gives you a fabric you like with your chosen yarn!

I recommend working at something around 5.5, 6, or 6.5 stitches per inch, and I’ve included a table to help you figure out what gauge you’ll want to use for your size. With that range of sizes and gauges, the hat will fit a head between 19 and 27.25 inches (with *lots* of points in between).

This hat uses between 200 and 250 yards of the main color (that’s the gray in the pictures), and about 75-100 yards of the contrast color (that’s the rainbow in the pictures, I used abut 15 yards of each of the five colors). If you want a pompom, I strongly recommend planning for 100-125 yards of yarn for that (pompoms always look best if you use way more yarn than you think you’ll need)!

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This is perfect for you if:
- You simply must know how that netting works
- You absolutely must have a pompom...but only sometimes

It's not for you if:
- You don't like charts (the pattern has charts)
- You hate swatching (you need to swatch to check your needle size)

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