This hat has stripes of purl that spiral around and in to the center top, separated by recessed stripes of knit. It is made flat, then seamed. The spiral is achieved by making a wider piece (more stitches than needed to stretch from ears to top of head), increasing on/near one edge, and decreasing on/near the other edge. The result would be a parallelogram if all stripes were uniform. I think I need about 10 pairs of stripes, but that's testable during construction. (The original, Version A, was very stretchy, so one fewer or more pair doesn't matter much.)

I'm trying to work it out in stitch-maps first. (Great to have a program to do the math for me!) The original had uniform purl stripes and tapering knit stripes achieved with short rows (result: a skewed rhombus rather than a parallelogram). Here, I have tapered the purl stripes as well, partly with short rows and partly by working the decrease edge as knit rather than purl, then switching to purl for the cuff/increase side. I'm hoping that'll give me recessed knit rows between the purl stripes near the center top. (Map made, but need to test it; WORK IN PROGRESS!).

Next steps:

First, I plan to switch it around so that the first row is part of the recessed stripe. Then I'll test it. My plan is to cast on with a live edge (onto an IC circular, then put those on hold), then at the end, join the two edges by working stacked centered decreases (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaIBqZ_yuMs) such as to make the seam be the last two rows of the recessed stripe. That'll be a separate stitch map, Swirl Hat - Version C.

If that works, I plan to do a version with an integrated cuff (rather than a furry cuff) and try that in Bernat Blanket or another thick yarn...might have to add width. I'd also want to make some of the recessed rows end at the cuff (short rows) so that the cuff is snug. If I get that far, it'll probably be Swirl Hat with Integrated Cuff.

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