Now that you've got all your stitches cast on, you're ready to join for working in the round and get to work on your hat! One of the reasons the Simple Slouch hat is so popular is its beginner-friendly nature. All you need to know to make the bulk of this hat you'll be learning today - the knit stitch!
Just as a reminder, this is how your stitches should look on the needles. All the bumps should be facing into the circle your needles make, so you know your stitches aren't twisted.
To join for working in the round, simply put your stitch marker on your right-hand needle, and then begin to knit the stitches from the left needle onto the right. Your first step is to insert the right needle into the back of the first loop, as seen above.
Next, you'll wrap your working yarn (the yarn coming out of the yarn ball)from back to front around the right-hand needle.
Next, you'll lift the left needle up and over the right needle, moving the stitch to the back of the right-hand needle. You will notice a new stitch has been made on the right needle.
Finally, you will slide the left-hand needle out of the stitch, watching as it becomes the row below the new stitch on the right-hand needle.
To help you remember this sequence, there are several knitting rhymes. My favorite is as follows:
In through the front door,
Once around the back,
Peek through the window,
And off jumps Jack!
You will continue to make knit stitches all the way around the needle, creating your first row of stitches as you go. When you've made your last knit stitch before your stitch marker, your needles should now look like this:
To start your next row, simply move the stitch marker from the left needle to the right, and begin your knit stitches again.
You will continue in this manner until your hat measures the correct length for your hat size. As an example, I'm making the child's sized hat, so I'll knit until I'm at the end of a row and my hat measures 10" from the cast on edge.
Be aware, your first few rows of knit stitches will begin to curl up onto themselves. This is a feature of the hat, and what happens when you work in stockinette - what you're doing when you knit every stitch in the round like this. If you're using wool, you can block that edge flat, but the hat is designed to have this roll.
To measure your hat for length, simply flatten out the roll and measure from end to needle - I'll show you how to do this in the next post.
Here's a video that shows how to do the knit stitch English style, which is also called "throwing", and how I've shown the knit stitch in the pictures above. Once again, it's from Knit Picks, a site I know and trust for both their quality and their content.
You've got all weekend to knit away, and on Monday we'll talk about decreasing and finishing off your hat! Be sure to ask any
questions you may have in the comments, and don't forget to hashtag your
projects #simpleslouchKAL on Instagram!
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