Adventures in Knitting: the 1898 Hat

I count myself among the good knitters, and I make so many stupid mistakes now. I chalk it up to the stroke, but I dunno.

Latest: I'm knitting an 1898 cap from the Seaman's Church Institute--free, everyone on Ravelry's knit it, etc etc. This is my first one. I got a skein of Briggs & Little from Maritime Family Fiber as part of a mystery set, which consisted of one skein of worsted in a lovely heather gray...and one skein of a blaring bright orange--"Hunter Orange."

WTF am I gonna do with that?! thinks me. You can see it from a mile away. Maybe two. I go round and round, it sits out waiting for a few months, it aggravates me, I complain about it.

The hubs finally says, gee, is that orange? *sigh* Yes. He could really use an orange hat, he says. You know--for when he goes hunting? Like...Hunter Orange?

The hubs hunts like this: he and a buddy set up camp, tromp around the woods all day, come back to camp empty-handed, and spend the night happily yakking before coming home the next day. So I can be forgiven for forgetting he hunts. But I can't be forgiven for forgetting he needs a hat.

ANYWAY.

So I'm knitting the brim and ear flaps of this thing. Mistakes the first-through-fourth: I have too many stitches on one side and not enough on the other. I am too stubborn to rip back. I fix it on the fly, so I have one wobbly edge. Fine, it'll be fine. The clincher was several-fold:

--knitting too many increases on the second ear flap
--ripping back three rows to the correct number of stitches
--misplacing the one surviving marker so that it appeared I'd managed not to pick up just one side's increase,
--trying to fix it
--and finally discovering I'd misplaced the goddamned marker by a stitch.

Who told me I could knit? I don't know.