A new knitting project.

A hat. Yes a hat. I've never knitted a hat before so this could prove to be fun :/ I'm on my second cast on now. First cast on was a complete disaster as I tried to use the circular needles that I bought a while back....flaming fire ball of horror. The stitches seemed to have to stretch too far to the two ends for me to knit the size of hat I wanted. The way it was going the hat would have fit a bear. And I'm not knitting it for a bear. It's for my partner in my latest swap over at Craftster. I've been partnered with my first male partner and he said he'd like a hat. So as I have knit a hat on my list of things to do I thought hey I can kill two birds with one stone here :) So after deciding that the circular needle route wasn't going anywhere fast I started again on some nice normal needles and am knitting it flat so that I'll just seam it up once I've finished. Only problem is I'm totally winging the whole thing, I'm not following any pattern and I haven't even kept track of how many rows I've done so far. So how will I know when to cast off? Should I decrease stitches as I go up so that it's still a fitted hat and not a big square? Maybe this hat will prove to be the test run and my partner will get the second attempt :D
I haven't gotten much crafting done over the last week or so as I've had a few extra shifts at work, my Mum has been up visiting and the smalls are off school. But I did take these photo's of a beautiful sunset. I love it when I get to catch these moments.