Kool Rock Ski Hat without Kool Rock

I made this hat for the trip to Estonia. The pattern is from Hip Hats and Cool Caps by Ibomu. I altered the pattern a little: Because I used a thinner yarn than suggested, I needed more stitches and rows. I also used hdc instead of puff stitch. I made the hat part deeper and earflaps longer to adjust the thing to fit my head. Earflaps are started following the intructions, but they have more sticthes for proper width. Then I skipped one stitch at the beginning of the row every row until I had twelve stitches wide end. Then I continued ceocheting the flaps until long enough and finished by again skipping one stitch in the beginning of every row until I had three stiched to bind of. If I had worked like suggested in the original pattern skipping one stitch every row I would have got a very unflattering sharply narrowing v-shape instead of what the picture suggested. When working with a different yarn you always must use your eyes and not only follow the directions, because the directions fit for the suggested yarn only.

Here the picture is taken indoors and not in natural light. Yarn is deep dark burgundy coloured Alpaka Fashion.