Jayne Hat Progress

Almost done with the Jayne Hat I'm making for my friend Nick. Only the earflaps and a pom-pom left to finish. I've decided the beginning of the flap shown in the picture looked a bit narrow. So I've ripped it back, and I'll start over by picking up a few more stitches. I'm combining a bit of a pattern posted on Craftster and another pattern posted on a blog with my own ideas.

When I was shaping the crown of the hat, I couldn't lay my hands on any dpns in the correct size so I had to improvise with my Denise circulars. For others with only one set of interchangeable needles and the curious, here's a rundown of how to do it:

• When there are too few stitches to fit comfortably around the shortest cord, pop both tips off and replace the right-hand tip with a button and the left-hand tip with a smaller size tip.
• Take a longer cord and put one of the correct size tips at one end and the other smaller size tip on the other end.
• With the larger tip in your right hand, work the first half of the round. Pull the right-hand needle until all its stitches are resting on the cord and then drop that needle.
• Take another long cord and put the second correct size tip on one end and a button on the other end.
• With this new needle in your right hand, work across the second half of the round.
• Now the original short cord is completely out of your work. Take off its tip and put it in place of the remaining button on the needle in your knitting.

Now everything is set up to continue with the two-circulars method of knitting in the round. This works because you always have the correct size needle tip in your right hand, and that is the needle determining the size of your stitches.

tags: knitting