A cake! ...

It looks that way. The hat is finished; now just waiting for it to dry out after it's bath. I'm blocking it with a piece of cardboard cut to the circumference of my head, all draped over a kitchen beaker.

Now you can see how the "scarf" part I'd shown in progress was joined to make a tube which became the body of the hat.

I was nervous knitting the top. For one, I was running short on the background color. Luckily, I found a ball of Navajo Churo wool that I spun and dyed years ago, and it just happened to be a good color match. That Churo is some I processed myself from fleece given to me by my high school friend (whom I am now geographically much closer to!). Even though there's a change of color in the hat, I think that's pretty typical in stranded work, and I think it still looks pretty good. Plus I'm happy that it remains 100% hand spun. Another reason I was getting nervous is because the Churo, although close in gauge to the other 2 yarns, was less resilient. It's stiffness was causing me to worry that the top would end up too big and puckered. In fact, I hurried the top decreases just a bit by combining 2 rows into 1 as I neared the finish line. Glad I did.

It looks like a cake!