Teenaged Stepdaughter has pointed out that the rabillettes might be even more appropriate for the Kitty Hat designed by Kitty Schmidt (http://www.kittyville.com/knit.html), and featured in Stitch 'N Bitch immediately after the Sparkle Hat. I have to agree.
As for as how to best utilize the rabillettes, that will take some experimentation. 
On the swatch at left, I tried using only seasonally appropriate green bells, which I thought went nicely with Berroco's "Medley" yarn. I suppose I could have used Christmas red yarn, although my eyes hurt just thinking about it. Anyway, the r-ettes are spaced fairly close together in the bottom two rows, which I'm thinking would work best for a border, and farther apart in the top three rows. They are quite large, 1 1/4" wide and 1 1/8" high, and could probably be spaced even farther apart with good effect, or even used as individual accents. Some of them wanted to turn and show their backsides, so I let them, to give an accurate idea of how they will look on a project.
What an odd direction I've taken since my first project after returning to knitting, a year or so ago. Here it is again, the Aran Coat by Dame DB (accessorized with TV remote--a forbidden toy unless Mom is trying to shoot a few photos). That same bright blue merino yarn 
(brand? no idea) used to be part of the project that caused me to stow my knitting needles for over a decade: a sweater in the round that I inexplicably did not realize was big enough to fit a sumo wrestler until it was almost up to my armpits.
Anyway, once I decided to try knitting again, I thought to begin with something for the smallest person I knew--my year-old son. I liked this pattern in DB's Classic Knits for Kids, but it only included directions for one size, 4-6 years, and it called for aran weight yarn--too heavy. I pulled Sumo out (ouch! I remembered that blue as being a little less intense) and the yarn appeared to be light worsted weight. Well, what if I followed the pattern, using worsted instead of aran? It would probably turn out to be, oh, size 2 or 3; if it was still too big, he could grow into it.... So I frogged the thing and got to work (no, I didn't make a swatch). As you can see, the finished article did turn out rather oversized; I estimate it will truly fit him well sometime next year.
The only part that really gave me trouble was the collar border. With no schematic of the collar, and no photo of how it looked from the back, these directions confused me: "Cont in patt until border fits along shaped edge of collar to centre...." Huh? So I took the pattern and partially finished collar into my friendly local yarn shop, Creative Warehouse in Needham, MA, where one of the employees looked at them and said, "Hmm. I don't know. I guess you'll have to just trust in the pattern." "'Trust in the pattern?'" "Yes, just keep going, it will make itself clear. Trust in the pattern." Okay, Yoda.
Well, Yoda was right--and the directions seemed crystal clear, in hindsight. Next, I knit a scarf, slavishly following the pattern (see "Chevron & Feather Scarf" in "Finished!"). After that, I started making changes to the patterns; small ones, at first, but then.... More in my next post.
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