Knitting III: Learn Knitting in the Round with a Slouchy Hat

1. Trailer: For me, knitting is really relaxing. It's kind of meditative. It's a great way to decompress. Hi, my name is Davina Choy, and I run a site called sheepandstitch.com, where I teach people how to knit through simple knitting patterns and video tutorials. So, in this Skillshare class, we're going to learn how to knit this cool slouchy ribbed hat with a pom-pom on top. You're going to learn how to knit in the round. You're also going to learn a little bit about knitting gauge, which is a really important concept. You're also going to learn how to work with double pointed needles, and how to decrease, and how to make a pom-pom, so a lot of techniques. It's super fun. It's really amazing to be able to make something with your own two hands. Most of us don't really use our hands for very much these days beyond typing on a keyboard or sort of picking up things. Our hands are not really part of any production, but with knitting, you can use your own two hands, and you can actually make something that you can wear or give to someone else. You can make something that's beautiful and useful, and for me that's completely magical. I would love for other people to experience that, too. 2. Introduction: So when you're knitting a hat, you really need to be knitting in the round and you can see why that is, because a hat is basically a big circle, right? It's like a big tube that eventually gets narrower and narrower as it gets to the top until it reaches a point. So the whole hat is going to be knit in the round and this is a really important skill to learn and I'm really excited to show it to you guys. So, knitting in the round is amazing for hats and it's great for pretty much any knitting project. I'll bet you like 80% of knitting projects require knitting in the round. So if you want to be making socks or mittens or even sweaters and definitely more hats in the future, you'll want to be knitting in the round. So, one of the things that you're going to learn when you're knitting this hat is how to cast on with the long tail cast on, and the long tail cast on is going to give you a nice stretchy edge and you want that when you've got a hat, because you want to be able to accommodate any sized head. So, the long tail cast on is great for that, and I'm going to show you how to do it. So the other thing that you're going to learn in this class is, of course, knitting in the round and how to use double pointed needles. When you get up to the top part of your hat, we're going to be switching from our circular needles to our double pointed needles. All right. So the skills that you're going to need in order to knit this hat are the four basic skills. So you need to know how to knit, how to cast on, although you don't really need to know that how to cast on because I'm going to teach you a new cast on, but you should know about the concept of casting on, the knit stitch, the purl stitch, and also the cast off. All right. So, when you're knitting in the round, you're going to be needing some tools. So, one of the tools that you're going to need are circular needles. So this is what a circular needle looks like. It's basically like two needles that have merged together into one giant needle, and this is going to be the needle that we knit on mainly when we're knitting our hat. A circular needle lets us knit a tubular fabric, so any kind of fabric that is like a tube, we would be knitting on circular needles. So for this project, we're going to be using two types of circular needles or circular needles of two different needle sizes and we're going to be using a smaller needle size for the beginning of our hat and we're going to be using a larger needle for the body of our hat and I'll explain that a little bit in our demo. But just a heads up, we'll be using two circular needles. All right. So another tool that you'll be needing when you're knitting in the round are double pointed needles. So, these double pointed needles are basically really short needles with a point on either end and you're going to need about four or five of them alright. So, the last thing that we're going to need for circular knitting is a stitch marker. Now, a stitch marker marks the beginning and the end of our row and you can use a stitch marker like this from a craft store or yarn store or you can use everyday household objects like a rubber band, would work fine, or even a hair tie or even like a ring like the one that I'm wearing on my finger, you can use that as a stitch marker, too. So, the yarn weight that you're going to need for this pattern is a chunky weight yarn. So this yarn is what I use to knit up the sample and it is made with crave yarns and it is 100% baby Alpaca and you're going to need about 120 yards of a chunky weight yarn. All right. So, the recommended needle size for this pattern is a seven millimeter circular needle and we're going to go over whether you're actually going to be using a seven millimeter needle or another size needle in the next unit but this is the recommended needle size. So you're going to be probably using a needle size in that general areas, seven millimeters or so. Okay. So, the smaller needle that we talked about earlier, we're going to use this for the hem of your hat and it's going to be one millimeter less than whatever you use to knit up the body of your hat. 3. Understanding Knitting Gauge: Before we actually get into exactly what you're going to need, we need to talk about knitting gauge. So, knitting gauge is a really important concept and to help me illustrate what it is and why it's important, I'm going to bring in two mascots to help you understand this concept. So, we've got a little dairy cow here, let's call her Daisy and we've got a cat here, this is an Egyptian cat probably from the British Museum and we're going to call him, let's call him Bobby. Okay. So, let's say Daisy and Bobby want to knit a scarf, all right? So, they want to knit a scarf and they're going to cast on the same number of stitches for their scarf. So, let's say 15 stitches. They're going to be using the same yarn and the same needle, same needle size, same yarn. So, everything that they're knitting is going to be exactly the same. But let's say that Daisy is really relaxed, she's a really relaxed cow, she like hangs out in the sun all day, she's really loose and really happy. So, as a result, when she knits up her scarf, she's also going to knit a scarf in a really loose manner. So, let's say Bobby over here is nervous kind of guy, he's a nervous cat. So, when he knits, he holds his needles really tightly, he holds his yarn really tightly. So, as a result, the fabric that he knits up is really tight. So, even if Bobby and Daisy are knitting the exact same thing very casting on the exact same number of stitches, using the exact same needle size and yarn weight, the fabric that they knit up is going to be quite different, because Daisy is a loose knitter, her fabric is probably going to be quite loose and because Bobby is a tight knitter, his fabric is probably going to be a little bit tight. So, this translates to humans as well of course. In the real world, we have knitters who are really loose knitters and knitters who are really tight knitters. So, you can imagine that, for a network designer, it's going to be difficult, right? So, if a network designer says in their pattern that they want you to cast on say, 50 stitches to knit up a sweater. If Bobby and Daisy are knitting up 50 stitches, the width of their fabric is going to be very different, right? Because Daisy is a loose knitter and Bobby is a really tight knitter. So, the way that a pattern designer can account for all the different types of knitting tension which is to say, the looseness and the tightness of every knitter, is called knitting gauge, all right? So, knitting gauge is a way for a designer to standardize the knitting tension of every knitter. All right. So, now I've got yarn and needles. I'm going to use classic elite yarns in winter for this hat into chunky yarn which is what the pattern asks for and I've also got a seven millimeter circular needle which is also the recommended needle for this pattern. All right. So, let's use the gauge for this pattern as an example. So, this gauge requires that we get 19 stitches and 18 rows in knit one purl two rip. If we do that, it needs two equal, four inches or 10 centimeters with our larger needles. All right. So, let's do that, let's cast on at least 19 stitches. So, I'm going to make my slipknot right here and I'm going to take my needle go through the slipknot, tighten it up and we're going to cast on, rather than 19, let's cast on say, 23. I want some extra stitches on the side to act as a buffer. It'll make it easier for us to measure this little gauge swatch. So, what we're knitting right now is going to be called a gauge swatch. It's what we're going to use to make sure that we actually have gauge for this pattern. If we do, once we do, once we know that knitting 19 stitches and 18 rows and knit one purl two rip gives us four inches. Then we know that we could use this yarn and needle combination to knit up our hat to the specifications of the pattern. All right. So, let me keep count here. How many stitches to we have? Two, four, six, eight,10, 12, 14, 16, 18,19, 20, and I'm going to cast on three more, so 21, 22, and 23. All right. Great. So, now we can start knitting up this little gauge swatch. All right. So, we need to knit this up in a knit one purl two rip. So, let's do that. We're going to do a knit one right here. So, knit one and then we're going to do a purl two. So, we're going to purl two. We're just going to repeat this across the row. When we get to the end, we're going to flip it over and just knit our knits and purl our purls and I'll show you what that means. Here we go, just done a knit one and we're going to do a purl two. Just continue in this fashion to the end of your row, doing a knit one and purl two. All right. So, here we go and at the end of my last stitch, and I'm just going to finish off that pattern right there. Cool. So, now I'm going to turn my work around and I'm just going to purl my purl stitches and knit my knit stitches, nice and easy. So, here we go. Here's a knit stitch, I'm going to knit into it, and here's a purl stitch and you can tell by this little bump that it's a purl stitch. Knit stitches have a little bit of a V, so here's a little V-shape. So, I know that's a knit stitch, so I'm going to knit into it, okay? Here's another knit stitch, we'll knit into that. So, we're just going to continue in this fashion until we get at least the number of rows that we need for our gauge and for our, this hat that would be 18 rows. So, again, in rather than knitting exactly 18 rows, I'm going to cut, I'm going to do a few more rows, knit a few more rows to make it easier for me when I'm measuring out my gauge swatch. So, I'm going to knit maybe like 22 rows. So, just continue in this way knitting the knit one purl two rip until you get 22, 23 rows and then we'll meet back here and measure this gauge swatch together. 4. Measuring a Gauge Swatch: All right, so now you've made up your gauge swatch and you've cast off after 22 or 23 rows and your swatch should look something like this, it's like a little square. Now we are ready to measure it to make sure that we have a gauge. All right. So, what you want to do is to take your gauge swatch and just lay it on a flat surface, I've got like a little notebook here. You just want to make sure it's nice and flat so you can get an accurate reading. All right, so our gauge swatch for this hat is 19 stitches and 18 rows equals four inches in this rib pattern that we've knit. So, let's measure the stitches first. So, stitches go horizontal and rows go vertically. So, let's measure our stitches. Let's pick any part of our gauge swatch so I'm going to choose this part right here and I'm going to make sure that my tape measure is kind of in line with the bottom of the stitches. So, a stitch is basically one of these little V shapes right. So, I'm going to be measuring how many stitches fit into four inches okay. So these purl stitches these little purl ridges are actually two purl stitches because remember our stitch pattern was a knit one purl too. So, let's start counting. I've got my tape measure against these stitches and I've got it level against the bottom of these stitches right here, these little V shapes so we're good. All right, so let's start counting. I've got one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12,13,14, 15, 16,17,18, and 18 and like a half. All right, so I'm a little bit smaller than what I need to be for my gauge swatch. So, let's start measuring the rows and let's see how we're doing on that front. Okay, so let's take a look here. I'm going to put my tape measure vertically, and I'm going to keep it in line with the top of the stitch right here. So, let's start counting the little V shape, so we've got one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15,16, 17 and 18, cool. So, that is the exact roll count that I need, but my stitch count is a little bit short. I'm getting 18.5. Now at this point, that's pretty close to what the gauge that we need, we need 19 stitches, I've got 18.5. So, at this point you have to make a decision whether you want to switch out a needle troubleshoot your gauge, or whether it's okay for you to just push forward and move forward with your hat. For me I think I'm okay with getting a slightly smaller gauge because this is a really stretchy fabric and if I'm off by half a stitch, I think I'm going to be okay, I think I can live with it. All right. So, I've made that executive decision. So, that means that I'm going to be using this yarn and the needles that I knitted this gauge swatch with, which is a seven millimeter needle, I'm going to use that combination to knit up my hat. Okay. So, if you didn't get gage, don't freak out, it's okay. There are two ways that you can fix this. So, let's say for example, you knit up your gauge swatch 19 stitches, and your gauge swatch ended up being too small. What you can do is you can change the needle size. So, let's say you used a six millimeter needle, you can just try bumping up your needle size to 6.5 or even seven millimeters, and try knitting up your gauge swatch again to see if you can't get gauge. So conversely, if your gauge watch is too large, you can try switching out to a smaller needle. So, let's say you use a seven millimeter needle and your gauge swatch was too large, you can try using a 6.5 or six millimeter needle to bring your gauge swatch down. Now, the other thing that you can do is to switch out your yarn. Most people don't like this because they're really committed to their yarn and they really like it, but it's one option that you can do. So, again if you're gauge swatch is too small, you can try choosing a larger weight yarn. So if you're using a chunky weight, try maybe a bulky weight, or try a chunky weight that feels more substantial. Conversely, if your gauge swatch is too large, then you might want to move down in terms of your yard weight. So, if you're using a super bulky yarn, maybe drop down to a chunky. So, these are two ways that you can troubleshoot your gauge. You can switch out your needle, play around with that, or you can switch out your yarn. So, for this reason, it's a really good idea to buy your materials from a shop that allows exchanges or refunds so that you can have some recourse if you don't get gauge, you can out switch your yarn, or switch out your needles. 5. Materials: All right. So, once you've gotten the gauge that works for you, so you know what size needle you need and what kind of yarn you need, then you're ready to go out to the yarn shop. All right. So, you're going to need a circular needle that's 16 inches in length, and you're going to want to get the size that gave you gauge. So, if it was the seven millimeter needle, get a seven millimeter needle. Now, you're also going to need a 16 millimeter needle that is one millimeter less than the size that you needed to get your gauge. So I know that sounds confusing. So, for instance, if your seven millimeter needle gave you gauge, then you're going to want to get a seven millimeter needle in a 16-inch circular needle. You're also going to want to get a six millimeter needle that is also 16 inches of circular needle. Okay? So, if seven millimeter gave you gauge, then you're going to want to get a needle that is one millimeter less than that, so that would be six millimeter needle. So, a six millimeter needle is what we're going to use to knit up to the brim of our hatch, and the seven millimeter needle is what we're going to use to knit up the body of the hat. So I hope that makes sense. Now, the next thing that you're going to need are double pointed needles. You're double pointed needles should be the same size as what you use to get gauge. So, in this hypothetical example, that would be a seven millimeter needle. So in addition to all of your needles, you're going to need some notions. So you're going to need a tapestry needle and we're going to use this to weave in our ends and to bring in our pompom, and you're also going to need a stitch marker, like this, or a ring, or a rubber band, whatever you got around the house. You're also going to need a pair of scissors. This is going to be for our pompom and a sharp one is best. If it's really dull, you're not going to have a lot of luck making your pom pom. All right. So, the last thing that you're going to need is a piece of cardboard. Just a scrap piece of cardboard will do. Once you've got all of these things, then we are ready to knit up the hat. 6. Creating the Longtail Cast On: All right. So, the first step of this pattern is the longtail cast on. Now the longtail cast on is different from the easy cast on that we've done earlier. The easy cast on, if you don't remember, is making a slip knot just like this, and looping our yarn onto our needle like this. This was the easy cast on that I taught you in the first class of the series of the How t Knit series. Now the longtail cast on is a bit different, but it's a much better cast on. It has a nice stretchy edge, and it's a great all-purpose cast on. It's nice and stretchy yet it's sturdy, the cast on that you should go to when you don't know what to do. So, we're going to learn how to do this right now. Okay. Now before we can start casting on, we need to figure out how much yarn we need for our long tail. So, this might sound kind of confusing and weird but I'm just going to roll with it and you'll see why it's important in just a second. Okay. So let's say you know you need to cast on 10 stitches. What you would do first is you would take the tail end of your yarn and wrap it around your needle 10 times. So, here we go. I'm going to do 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10. All right. Then I'm going pinch that 10 point, and then just take my needle off my yarn. So at this point I know that I can cast on 10 stitches with this amount of yarn on my tail end. So, at this point, I'm going to make a slip knot at around that 10 stitch point. Okay. I'm going to go like this, pull that loop through, and put it on my needle. Then I'm going to tighten it up. All right, great. So this is just a demo just in case you're concerned. We're not actually knitting our hat quite yet. I'm just showing you how to do the longtail cast on. All right. So, with the longtail cast on, you want to make sure that your yarn, your longtail, so this tail end right here, is up front and that the yarn attached to your ball is in the back. All right. So, what we're going to do is we're going to take our left hand, and we're going to use these two fingers first. All right. We're going to use these two fingers, and we're just going to clamp down on these two yarn strands just like that. I'm going to keep my index finger of my right hand on this stitch because I don't want it to move around on my needle. I want it to be nice and secure. All right, so, again, two of these fingers on my left hand, clamp down on these two yarn strands. My index finger on my right hand is going to keep this stitch secure. All right. So what I'm going to do next is I'm going to take my thumb and my index finger, and I'm going to push into these two yarn strands just like that. So I'm making a little bit of a diamond shape, right? Just like that. Okay. So, I want you to do this, and move your hand around back and forth. Just get comfortable, moving your hand around, and making sure that it doesn't kind of slide down like this. Okay. You want your hand nice and secure. So again, two fingers, clamp down, thumb and index finger is going to push into these two yarn strands, and then we're going to move her hand back and forth. So, once you're comfortable with this motion, we're going to bring our hand twisted up to the front like this so that I can see all of my fingers. Right. Now I want to take my needle, touch it to my thumb, go into the loop on my thumb like that, and then I'm going to turn my hand around again so that I can no longer see the fronts of my fingers. I'm going to take my needle and bring it into this loop right here. I'm going to turn my hand again, and bring my needles through this loop on my thumb, and then I'm going to pull down. So, there, we've just cast on one stitch with the longtail cast on. Awesome. All right. So, let's keep going. Okay. I'm going to get my two fingers on my left hand, just clamp down, thumb and forefinger will push into these two yarn strands. We're going to turn our hand to the front so we can see all of our fingers, then we're going to take our needle in our right hand, drop it down to our thumb, go through the loop on our thumb, turn our hand again through the loop on the second finger, and then back home through the loop on our thumb just like that and pull down. So there we go. We've got our second cast on stitch. Pretty cool, right? It gets a lot easier as you go along. You can definitely say these instructions out loud. Two fingers, clamp down, thumb and index finger, push through, turn your hand to the front, touch your thumb, through the loop, turn your hand again, through the second loop, and back home through the loop on your thumb, pull down. All right. So just practice that, get comfortable with casting on, and once you get comfortable you can go really fast like what I'm doing right now. You can get a rhythm with it and go pretty quickly. So, let's see if we can actually cast on 10 stitches with our yarn. Let's see, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10. Cool. Remember when we first started, our tail end was quite long. We wrapped it around our yarn to make sure we had enough to cast on, and now we definitely have enough to cast on, and our longtail is quite a bit shorter because a lot of this yarn went into the cast on. Okay. So, that's why we need to measure out this longtail. We need to make sure we have enough of it so that we can cast on the number of stitches that we need. Okay. So, practice this for a little bit, and when you feel ready, then cast on 56 stitches which is the number of stitches that we need for the hat. 7. Joining in the Round: You want to be casting your stitches on your smaller circular needles, not your larger ones. Okay? So, not the ones that you use to get gauge with, you want to use your smaller circular needles for casting on. Once you get 56 stitches on your needle, then what you want to do is you want to get out your stitch marker. Now, your stitch marker is going to mark the beginning and the end of your round. When you're knitting out flat needles, you don't need to mark the beginning and end of your round. Right? Because you're just knitting back and forth. But on a circular needle, because your work is going to be joined in one piece, you need to know where the beginning and end of your round is. All right? So, just keep that handy right now. So, we're going to take this stitch marker, and we're going to put it onto our right needle. Okay? With our working yarn right here, we're going to take our right needle and just knit into the needle on our left stitch or the stitch on her left needle. Then, we're going to knit into it. Okay? So, here we go. Now, let's take a look at our work. You want to make sure that when you knit into your stitch on your left needle that your stitches are not twisted. So, you can see right now that all of my stitches are facing the same direction. Right? They're all facing the same direction and that's great. When your stitches are twisted, they're not going to be facing the same direction. When your stitches are twisted, let me show you what that might look like. Here we go. Let's take this off. When your stitches are twisted, it's going to look a bit like this. Okay? So, if you knit into your first stitch, you're going to see that when you knit your work, you're going to have a big twist in the edge of your hat, and that's no good. Because as you knit, knit, knit, this twist is just going to follow your work. When you get to the beginning of your round again, you're not really going to be able to knit your stitch because you'll have a giant twist here. Right? So, that's not good. You want to make sure that your stitches are not twisted. So, let's untwist everything right now. Here we go. We brought our twist all the way to the beginning and thankfully, we can just take our stitch that we just knit right off. There we go. So, that our work is no longer joined in the round and untwist it like that. Right. Then, pop that stitch back on our left needle. Great. So, you want to make sure that everything is turned inward. So, right now you can see all my stitches turning inward, and that's how we know that our stitches are not twisted. They're all facing the same direction. All right. So, when your stitches are untwisted, you're going to take your stitch marker, pop it on your right needle, and then knit into this first stitch on your left needle. Once you've done that, then your work is officially joined in the round. Right? All of our stitches are on one row, and they're just joined in the round in a circle. Cool. All right. So, once you've joined your work in the round, then you can work the knit one purl one rib also known as one by one rib. That consists of knitting one and purling one, and you would just repeat that across the whole round. So, I've just knit my first stitch, and I'm going to bring my yarn up front, I'm going to purl my next stitch. All right? So, this is basically the two stitch repeat. Okay? Your knit one and purl one. So, let's continue doing that. You would just again knit one, and purl one, and continue in this fashion. Okay? Knit one, and purl one. So, take this time to get comfortable with circular needles. How do your hands feel holding them? They're are definitely different than flat needles. So, this is a pretty simple stitch pattern, the knit one purl one. So, use this time to figure out how your hands are going to navigate the circular needles. All right? So, here we go. We will be doing this stitch pattern, knit one purl one, until our work measures one inch. Okay? So, when you get to the end of your round, what you would do is you would just slip your marker off and continue knitting. All right? That's all there is to it. 8. Switching Needles: All right, so, now you've knit one inch in the one-by-one rib. Let's measure that out, see if we've got it and yeah, we've got one inch. Cool. All right, so once you have this then we are ready to switch to our larger needles and we're going to knit the rest of the body of our hat with these larger needles. Okay. So I've taken off my stitch marker because it's just going to get in the way for now. So, what I'm going to do is we're actually going to move on to increasing. Okay. So if you look at your pattern, it tells you that you need to increase as follows. Knit one, make one, purl wise and purl one. So, we're actually going to be increasing our stitches from 56 stitches of these rib stitches all the way up to 84 stitches and we're going to do that with our larger needles. Okay. So, if this sounds daunting, don't worry, it's really not that hard. I'm going to show you how to do it right now. Okay, so, we're going to use our larger needle, we're going to have it in our right hand and we're just going to knit into this first stitch. The first stitch of our round. Okay. So, here we go. So, just ignore this part of your circular needle, the smaller part of your circular needle. Okay. So, now we're going to do what's called a make one purl wise, and what that means is we're going to take this little strand of yarn between our two stitches. I'm just going to lift that up and I'm going to put that on my needle like this. Okay. So, I'm going to take my yarn, I'm going to put it on my needle. All right. I'm going to take it and put it on my left needle from the back to the front. So, it looks like this and then I'm going to take my yarn and I'm going to bring it to the front of my needle and we're going to purl into this stitch right here or into this strand of yarn that I've just picked up. Okay. So I'm going to go into it and I might have to pinch it a little bit like that to get it in. So, here we go. I'm going to knit, or excuse me, I'm going to purl into that strand of yarn, and in the process, I'm going to increase one stitch. Here we go. I'm going to increase by a purl stitch. All right. So what I'm going to do next is I'm going to purl into this next stitch just like this, okay? Cool. That is it for our repeat. So, we will just repeat this section again. We're going to do a knit one and then we're going to take this strand of yarn between our two stitches like this and I'm going to bring it onto my needle from back to front. Okay. Just like that, and then I'm going to take my working yarn, bring it to the front of my needle, and I'm going to knit into this strand of yarn that I've just picked up and I'm going to just plop it over my needle like that and we're going to purl into it, okay? Then we're going to purl one. All right. We're just going to complete, continue this repeat across our whole round, right? So, here's knit one, make one purl wise, we're going to pick up that strand, bring our left needle, drop it onto our left needle from back to front. Take our working yarn up front like this and we're going to purl into this. All right. So it's going to be hard just trying to get it in like this which is why I like to pinch it a little bit and just drop it right on my needle. So, we're going to purl that. Great. Then purl one. All right. So this is how we're going to increase across our entire round. All right. So you would just continue doing that. Knit one then do a make one purl wise increase. All right. So from back to front, bring your yarn up front, knit into that strand of yarn. Whoops, there we go. Our strand of yarn and then purl one. So, do this across your whole row until you get across this entire round all the way around until you get back to the beginning here, and then we're going to move on to the knit one purl two together. All right. So now you're near the end of your round and we've just got one more stitch left right here. So, we're going to do a make one purl wise. Here we go. We purl into this stitch right here. Here we go. Our last purl stitch. Great. Cool. So now we have increased to 84 stitches. So, let's count to see if we actually have 84 stitches, okay? So here we go. We've got 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 22, 24, 26, 28, 30, 32, 34, 36, 38, 40, 42, 44, 46, 48, 50, 52, 54, 56, 58, 60, 62, 64, 66, 68, 70, 72, 74, 76, 78, 80, 82, 84. Great. So, we do have 84 stitches and now we can move on to the next part of our pattern. All right. So now that we've got 84 stitches, we can bring our stitch marker back in and plot that onto our right needle and we can move on to the next part of our pattern. So, the next round of our pattern says that we need to knit one and purl two to the end of round. So, that's pretty easy. Let's do a knit one and a purl two. Here we go. We're just going to continue this stitch pattern all the way to the end. Knit one, purl two. You can see that the pattern is already put in place for us when we were increasing just now. We increased using a make one purl wise and that has added all these little purl stitches down here. So, we really don't even need to remember the stitch pattern. All we really need to do is to look down at our stitches. When you see a knit stitch, you would knit into it. When you see a purl stitch, you would purl into it, right? So, here we go. Pretty easy. So, this is pretty much what we're going to be doing until our work measures eight inches from the cast on edge. All right. So you're going to be doing a lot of knit ones and purl two's. Okay. So, continue in knit one purl two rib until your entire work measures eight inches from the cast on edge and then meet me back here and we'll start decreasing for the crown of our hat. 9. Decreasing Stitches: All right. So, our hat is looking pretty good right now. So, let's measure it to see if we've hit eight inches. So, I'm going to take my stitch marker off and I'm just going to measure this out here with my tape measure. Let's see and get on a flat surface here, and yeah, we're at exactly eight inches perfect. So, now we can move on to the next part of our pattern, which is decreasing. All right, so let's take our stitch marker back, put it on our needle, and let's move on to the first round of our decreases. So, our first round says that we need to knit one. So, let's do that, knit one and it says, we need to Purl two together, cool. We need to do that to the end of the round. All right, so let's do that together. Let's knit one and then Purl two together, okay? So, knit one, Purl two together. So, you can see that as I decrease, the fabric of my hat is getting smaller and smaller. As we continue to decrease, our fabric is going to be so small that we're not really going to be able to stretch it across the circular needle, right? The circular needle is 16 inches long and as we decrease our hat, it's going to get much smaller than 16 inches. So, what are we going to do? All right, so that is where our double-pointed needles are going to come in. So, once the fabric of our hat gets too small, we're going to migrate all of our stitches to double-pointed needles, and that'll be pretty fun. But for now, our stitches are still pretty comfortable on our circular needles. We don't have to migrate them quite yet. But once they start feeling kind of sparse, once you're kind of stretching your work across the needles, then that's a good sign that you need to start moving them to the double-pointed needles. All right, so continue in this fashion, doing a knit one, Purl two together until you get to the end of this round. All right, so now, we are nearing the end of our first decrease round. Let's do this last Purl two together. Here we go, cool. So, we've just finished our first decrease round. All right, so let's move on to our next round. So, our next round says that we just need to do a knit one, Purl one all the way around. So, once we've done this row, once we've done this round rather, we need to repeat that again two more times. So, let's do that. Let's just knit one or do a knit one, Purl one across this entire round. All right, so now, I've almost finished two more rounds of the knit one, Purl one, and here we go. Cool. All right, so now we're going to move on to our next round of decreasing. So, our next round of decreasing says that, we need to do something called an SSK. An SSK stands for a slip, slip, knit. What that means is, you're just going to slip your stitch on your left needle as if you were going to knit. So, I'm going to slip it right off my needle, but I'm not actually going to knit it. I'm just going to slip it off my needle, and I'm going to slip my second stitch off the needle as well. So, I'm slipping it in as if I'm going to knit it, and then I'm going to just take it off, right? So, what I'm going to do now, so that's the SS of the SSK, slip slip. Now, I'm going to knit into these two stitches with my left needle. So, I'm going to take my left needle and just bring it under the first stitch. Bring it under the second stitch like that, and then I'm going to take my working yarn and just wrap it around my right needle and knit into these two stitches, just like that. All right, so I've just decreased two stitches, all right? We're going to keep going. So, we've just done an SSK. Then I'm going to do a knit one right here, and then I'm going to continue doing that repeat SSK and a knit one. So, here we go. I'm going to slip my needle under this stitch, slip it off, slip off the second stitch, and then I'm going to use my left needle to knit into these two stitches like that, okay? Then we'll do a knit one. Okay, so we're just going to repeat that. We're going to do a slip slip, and a knit. Here we go, and then a knit one. All right, so just repeat this across the whole round. We're going to do a slip, slip, knit. You'll then knit, and a knit one, okay? You can see that we get these really cool kind of slanting decreases when we do our slip, slip, knit. You'll see that across the the whole crown of our hat. 10. Switching to Double-Pointed Needles: All right. So, now I'm at the last two stitches and I'm going to do a slip, slip, knit. Here we go. Slip, slip and here we go. We're going to knit. There we go. I'm going to bring my stitch marker over. So, now we have a stitch count. After every decrease round, we have stitch count. So, we should have 37 stitches. So, I'm just going to count right now. I'm going to take my stitch marker off so it doesn't get lost and let's count to see if we have the right number of stitches. So, we've got two, four, six, eight, 10, 12,14,16,18,20, 22, 24, 26, 28, 30, 32, 34, 36, 37, and that is the right number of stitches that we should have. So, we're on the right track, great. Okay. So, if you're noticing that your stitches are tight on your needle, well, that's because we've been decreasing our stitches. So, naturally, we are going to have less stitches on our needle, right? So, at this point, you can decide that if your stitches are really tight, you can decide to switch over to double pointed needles. Now, I think it's a good idea to switch over before you do a decrease round just to get used to working with double pointed needles. If you look at our next round, our next round is a plain knit round. So I think this is a pretty good time to switch over to double pointed needles. Okay. So, let's get your needles out and you should have at least four or five of them. So, here we go. I've got five of them over here and what I'm going to do is I'm just going to migrate my stitches onto them. Okay. So, I'm just going to take one needle and I'm going to take my stitches and move them onto this double pointed needle. Now, it doesn't actually matter how many stitches you have on each needle, it's not necessary for every needle to have an even number of stitches or to have the same number of stitches. The only important thing is that your stitches should be on the needles, right? You don't want to have any dropped stitches. So, here we go. This needle looks like it's pretty comfortable with all of these stitches on it. So, I'm just going to move on to another needle. So, here we go, I'm introducing a new needle and we're just going to pick up some of these stitches. Okay. I'm just going to evenly distribute or not evenly, I'm going to distribute these stitches onto my double pointed needles so that they're nice and secure on them. So, that looks pretty good. So, let's move over and continue on. Now, I've got five double pointed needles. So, I could use all four of them, I need one of them to knit with. So, I can use four needles and put my stitches over four of them or I can just use three in a pyramid shape. Now, I've always been partial to using three. I'm not entirely sure why but, it works either way. You can use three or four needles, it doesn't really matter. All right. So, now, all of my stitches are on my double pointed needles. That's pretty great. So, now, my circular needles are out of the picture, I don't really need them anymore. So, this is the beginning of my round here and I can see because I've got my working yarn. But, I want my stitch marker to be here. I want to mark this part of my work so that I don't get confused with all these other needles. So, what I'm going to do is I'm going to take my stitch marker and pop it onto my left needle, this marks the beginning of my round. Then, if I keep it here, it's going to fall off really easily, right? There's no second stitch that's bracketing it. So, what I'm going to do is I'm just going to take my right needle and just knit into the next stitch on my double pointed needles like this, okay? There we go. All right. So, now, I've got two stitches bracketing my stitch marker and I don't have to worry about it falling off. Okay. So, let's take a look at our stitches on our double pointed needles. Now, things are looking pretty cozy right about now. There's a lot of stitches on here. If I wanted, I could move my stitches around. You can see that they are not that many stitches on this needle and there are quite a lot on this needle. So, if I wanted to, I could move some of these stitches over to this needle, move some of these stitches over here and shuffle them around. But for me, I think I'm comfortable with keeping them here for now, right? So, I'll show you what I mean. If you want it, you could just move some of these stitches over, right? Just like this and then take some of these stitches on this needle and bring it over to the left needle. You can shuffle them around. It really doesn't matter. Okay. So, we can do that, right? As long as the stitches are comfortably sitting on your needle, it's fine. All right. So, I'm pretty happy with this arrangement right now, we can do this. What we're going to do now is we're going to continue decreasing. So, we left off doing our slip, slip, knit and our next round is just knitting to the end of the round. All right. So, this is how knitting with double pointed needles work. You're going to take your working yarn and you're just going to take your extra needle, so you should have four or five needles. I've got three wrapped up with my stitches now. So, I've got two extra ones that are just hanging out. So, I'm going to take one of these needles with no stitches on them and I'm going to insert it into the stitch on my left needle. With this working yarn attached to my third needle here, I'm going to use that to just knit into this stitch. So, it's going to be a bit of a needle party right now, there's a lot of needles around. So, I'm going to pull really tight so that there's no gap between these two needles. Okay. So, for this round, we're just knitting. So, I've knit into this first stitch keeping it nice and secure, nice and tight and I'm going to knit into the second stitch. Okay. Just like that, and the third stitch. So, this almost feels like regular knitting on two flat needles except you've got four needles in the mix right now. So, I'm going to knit all the stitches on this double pointed needle. When I'm done, I'm going to move on to my second double pointed needle. We're just going to knit in the round with all of these double pointed needles. So, here we go. I've just finished the stitches on one double pointed needle and I'm going to turn my work over, and we're going to move on to this double pointed needle. So, when you look at how things are spaced out, it really is very similar to knitting with our circular needle, right? Our stitches are still in the round but they just happened to be distributed on three needles rather than on one giant circular needle. Okay. We can use these double pointed needles when our hat gets narrower. So, when we have like three stitches on each needle, right? A circular needle could never accommodate that few stitches, but a double pointed needle can definitely accommodate that few stitches. Okay. So, that's why we knit with double pointed needles when we have very few stitches left and we still need to knit in the round. That's where these bad boys come in. Okay. So, let's keep on knitting. Here we go, just plain old knitting and just try and get comfortable with these needles. Okay. With how they work and maneuvering them, it's a little bit awkward at first but once you get the hang of them, they're really pretty great. So, here we go. We're just knitting for this round, right? Just knitting. Which is great because, it's a good way to get used to working with these needles. Just a plain knit round. Okay. So, here we are, we're on our last double pointed needle before the end of our round. Here we go. Every time I move from one needle to another, I like to just pull it tight so that there's no gap that's made in our fabric. Okay. So, here we go. We're going to knit, continue knitting to the end of our round. Okay and we're almost there, here we go. We've got two more stitches. Cool, all right. So, we've just finished our plain knit round and the next round says that we need to knit two together to the last stitch and then we're going to knit one. So, we can't knit two together right now because there's only one stitch on our needle, right? So, what I'm going to do is I'm just going to take a stitch from my next needle. So, here we go, I'm just going to take one. I'm just literally going to steal a stitch from that needle and then I'm going to take my stitch marker, bring it from my left needle to my right needle, and then that marks the beginning of our round. So, we're going to move on to the next round. So, we're going to knit two together just like that. So, we're knitting two together across the whole round. Okay. So, here we go and here we're going to knit two together. We're removing from one needle to the other. So, I'm going to keep my yarn really tight firm, when I move from one needle to another. I'm just going to knit two together here and knit two together here and continue across my whole round across all of these needles. If I come to a point where I only have one stitch, I can just take another stitch from my next needle. So, here we go. We're going to move over here and do another knit two together. So, again, keeping my yarn tight when I'm switching from one needle to another. Here we go, I'm going to pull that to make sure it's nice and tight. Okay. Then another knit two together. So, we're decreasing our hat quite rapidly, right. But, our needles don't care. Okay. They can accommodate very few stitches. So, we're good. All right. So, here we go, we've got one stitch. We've just done a bunch of knit two together and we've only got one stitch. So, we need to take a stitch from our next needle, here we go. So, I'm just taking one, there we go, and I'm going to knit two of these stitches together like that. Here we go. All right, now, we're on our last needle and we're going to continue knitting two together. Here we go, okay. Pull it nice and tight. Here's another knit two together, and knit two together, and knit two together and when we get to our last stitch, we're just going to knit one. Great. All right. So, let's just move this stitch marker over and I'm just going to knit this first stitch of the round because I don't want to deal with four needles hanging around. Okay. So, now, let's count how many stitches we have. We should have 19. So, let's count them. We've got, let's see, two, four, six, eight, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 19. Perfect, so, we're good. Okay. So, the next round of our pattern, and we've only got two rounds left, right? So, the next round of our pattern is just a plain old knit round. Okay. So, that's nice and easy. I just knit my first stitch of my round. So, we're good, we can move on to the next needle and we're just going to fly through these, okay? 11. Finishing the Slouchy Hat: Okay. So, the next row, the last round of our pattern is just a knit two together to the last stitch. All right, great. So, I've only got one stitch on this needle, so again, I'm just going to steal a stitch from my next needle like this, okay? Then, I'm just going to start knitting two together. Okay, so let's do this. Here we go, knit two together and now, we're onto our next needle. When we're done, when we're finished knitting two together on this round, we should have 10 stitches. Then, what we're going to do is we're going to cut our yarn and make a knot and weave through, and we'll be done knitting our hat, so crazy. Okay, so again, we've only got one stitch here, so I'm going to steal and stitch over here. There we go, come on, there we are, okay. We're going to knit these two stitches together. There we go, cool. We're just going to keep going, this is our last needle, oh! Wait, it is not our last needle. We still got two needles left. Okay, so here we go, knit two together and tighten that, knit two together, knit two together. Great, didn't have to steal one there and we are going to move on. Now, we're on to the last stitch or into the last needle. So, here we go, we're going to knit two together and knit two together, and we are basically done. Great, so now this is our last stitch and I'm just going to knit into in. Great, so now I should have 10 stitches on my needle, I'm just going to take my stitch marker off so I can count to see everything a little better. So, I've got, let's see one, two, three, four, five. Okay, let's just do that one again. So, we've got 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10, great. So, now we're ready to cut our yarn, awesome. So, I've got my scissors right here and I'm just going to leave a tail of maybe like 10 inches, okay? So, I'm going to cut my yarn like that, great. Now, I'm going to weave this tail end through my stitches to keep them secure. So, you can use a tapestry needle if you like or you can just do what I do which is I usually just take my tail end, wrap it around the stitches that are following, and then I just bring it over the stitch and just pull it through. Then, I'm going to put this double-pointed needle aside and do the same across the stitches. So, I'm just going to take my stitch and bring it over the yarn that I've just cut off and we'll do that again, okay? So, we're just going to continue doing that. Okay, bringing it over, bringing a stitch over and then pulling the yarn through and then setting my double-pointed needle aside, okay? Then, continue across the rest of your needle. So, here we go, we're going to bring it over, bring our stitch over, bring our stitch over, and then pull our yarn through and then here's our last stitch or here's our last needle and we're going to go bring it over, bring it over, bring it over, and pull through. All right, so here is our hat. It is complete, can you believe that? Here we go, so not bad, not bad looking at all. So, what we're going to do now is we're just going to take our tapestry needle out, this is where it comes in. We're going to weave it through, okay? Then, we're just going to tighten at the top of our hat, you can see there's this hole here, so we don't want that hole, we want to just tighten it up, okay? I'm going to pull it really tight so that we don't have a hole anymore, and then I'm going to put my needle into this hole and then go into my hat and pull it down. So, it's nice and tight like this, okay? So, there is no hole anymore, pull it nice and tight like that, okay? So, then I'm going to turn my hat inside out. So, you can just pull it like this and then we're going to weave in this long tail end into the inside of our hat. So, here you can see, we've got a bunch of Purl stitches, right? Which is great. It's great for camouflaging our working yarns. I'm going to take my needle and I'm just going to go into these Purl bumps right here, okay? So, here we go, and then I'm just going to follow the flow of the stitches, I'm going to go down one, okay? Then, I'm going to go down one again and maybe we're going to go up one here, okay? Just like that and you can pull it pretty tight, keep it nice and secure, okay? Here we go and I'm going to do this maybe five or six times just to keep it nice and secure, okay? So, I'm not going to cut this tail end quite yet, I want to see what it looks like on the front, so I'm going to turn it around again, take a look at what it looks like, right? Is it looking pretty good? Is it pretty secure? Right? If it looks acceptable to you, if you like it, then you can definitely just go back into the inside of your hat and just cut off that tail end right there, okay? So, here you go, this is your hat, pretty great, right? Go and try it on, have fun, look at yourself in the mirror wearing it and if you want to make a pompom, then we can do that in the next unit. 12. Creating an Optional Pom Pom: All right. So, now, we're ready to make our pom pom. So, let's take a look at the sample that we have here. Now, the sample that I've got, I used about a three inch piece of cardboard circle to make this size pom pom. So, think about the size of the pom pom that you want. Do you want like a giant fluffy one that's huge and massive? Or do you want like a little petite one? The size that you decide on will determine what size that you're going to draw on your cardboard. For example, if I want to make a three inch pom pom, I'm going to draw a three inch circle on this piece of cardboard and that's going to help me make my pom pom. All right. So, I have decided that I want a three inch pom pom. And when you draw a circle, you can use a prop like this cup that I've got or you can freehand it. I would suggest getting an actual object that you could use to trace because that'll make your life a lot easier So, here I've got, this cup is about three inches, you can see. So, I'm going to use this cup as my tracing tool. I need to make two cardboard circles. I'm going to use my cup. I'm just going to place it on my cardboard and then I'm going to trace it with my pen. Here we go. I'm going to make two circles. So, here we go, I'm going to make another circle right beside it and then I'm going to trace it. Just like that. Cool. So, I'm going to draw a circle inside these two circles that I've made. So, I'm just going to eyeball a center point. It gets a right about there. Here we go. Here's another center point. And then, I'm going to draw about a 1 inch circle around the center point. So, I'm just free handing it right now. If you've got a 1 inch circle thing, you can use that as a tracing tool. But for me, this is okay. So, you've got these two round cardboard doughnuts. So, what you're going to do now is you're going to get a pair of scissors and you're just going to cut these guys out. So, just cut these guys out and you'll end up with two little doughnuts. So, when you do that, you're going to end up with this. So, two cardboard doughnuts. Awesome. Now, once you have these two doughnuts, then you're going to get your yarn and we are going to make these pom poms together. So, now I've got my two cardboard doughnuts cutout and what I'm going to do is just put them together like this. Just overlap them. I'm going to take my scissor and just cut a slit into them like this. That will really help us make our pom pom a lot easier. So, for this, we're going to need a yarn and you're also going to want to get a pair of really sharp scissors. So, I've got some really super sharp scissors here. This will help you when we are going to cut our pom pom loose. Okay, so let's get started. With our yarn, we're just going to loop it into this hole of our doughnut and just kind of keep it secure like this. Then, we're just going to wrap our yarn around this doughnut many, many times. So, the fluffier you want your pompom to be the more times you're going to wrap around this doughnut. So, I'm just going to push this a little bit closer to the edge here. You don't want it so close that it actually falls off the slit, but you want it to be pretty close. So, I'm just going to wrap it around this doughnut until it's kind of big and fluffy. If you want a really sparse thin pom pom, then you would wrap fewer times. If you want a really, really fluffy pom pom, then wrap many, many, many times. I want a medium sized pom pom. So, this is pretty good. You want to wrap until you don't see any of the cardboard showing through. Just do this around your entire pompom. So, here, I am nearing the end of my doughnut. I don't want to get too close to the edge. So, what I'm going to do is I'm just going to wrap a couple more times around the edge here. That's pretty good. So, now, I think this looks pretty good. We've wrapped a lot of times. Not so many that I'm going to get a crazy pom pom, but enough that I think we're going to have a pretty sizable pom pom. A pretty good one. So, what I'm going to do is I'm going to take my really sharp scissors and I'm just going to cut that pom pom loose. I'm going to take another length of yarn. So, I don't know about 20 inches, 15, 20 inches and just cut that off. Okay, great. So, I'm going to leave this length of yarn to the side. Right now, I'm going to get out my scissors and I'm going to keep this yarn tail, you just wrap it over here. Now, I'm going to spread open these two cardboard doughnuts that I've done, right? I'm going to take my scissors and just insert it between these two cardboard pieces. I'm going to start cutting. That's why it's important that you have a really sharp pair of scissors. Because if you've got really dull ones, it's going to make cutting really, really hard. So, I'm going to push it in. There we go. Cut this pom pom loose. Freeing these little pom pom strands and going to be really delicate. I don't want to move these two doughnuts out of place. So, here we go, I'm just going to hold it gently and pry open these two cardboard pieces so that I can cut into this doughnut. I think I'm getting some cardboard too. Here we go. We're almost there, and here we go. All right, last snip. So, now I'm going to lay my pom pom down. I've been kind of manhandling it a little bit. Lay it down. I'm going to get my strand of yarn. I'm just going to start here. I'm going to start where the slit is. I'm just going to push them open like this and I'm going to put this yarn strand in between them. Then, I'm going to wrap it around my whole doughnut like this. So, your yarn strand should be between your two doughnuts. They should be about the same length of yarn. Here, I'm going to make them even, as even as I can. Then, I'm just going to tie a knot up here. I'm going to pull it so that it actually knots in the center. So, here we go. Make it really tight and I'm going to do another knot so I'm going to bring my two yarn threads really close together, and I'm going to do a double knot. So, I'm going to take my yarn strands. Make a knot, just like this, and I'm going to make another knot. So, it's really secure. Then I'm going to pull down. There we go. All right. So, now are pom pom is very secure and we can take these two doughnut things off. All right, we can let our pom pom into the world. So, here we go, I'm just going to pry this cardboard off my pom pom. Like this, great. I'm going to take my other one off. Cool. So, here we go. Here is our pom pom, looking pretty good right? Now, you can see that it's not really that even. There's some strands that are sticking out or just that come straight off. Some are a bit longer, some are a little bit shorter. This is where your scissors come in again. It's also not much of a circular shape. It's a little bit funny. So, with your scissors, you would just trim your pom pom. You're just going to give your pom pom a haircut. Now, I'm going to get my trash can over here because we're going to get a lot of pom pom hair all over the place. I'm going to bring my trash can over and we're just going to start trimming our pom pom, just give it a bit of a haircut. So, this is again not a science. You trim it as you see fit. Trim it into a circular shape. So, trim off some of the long strands. The ones that are sticking out so that you get a nice circular shape with your pom pom. So, here we go. This can be pretty addictive. It's a good idea to just stop after a while and take stock of where you are with your pom pom, and look at it from every angle. Look at it from the top, from the bottom. See where you can actually improve its shape. Here you go. It should look a little bit circular like this. So, I've trimmed down my pom pom to this size and you can see there's a pretty large size disparity because I've trimmed it down so much. But you can see that as you trim it down, your pom pom gets more dense. So, this is a very dense pompom. It's not so dense when it's this size. But as you trim inwards, it'll become a lot tighter. So, once you get the pompom that you like then you can actually begin attaching it to your hat. Let's get out our tapestry needle, right here. We're just going to thread these two yarn strands onto our tapestry needle. You can do it one at a time because it might be a bit difficult. So, here we go. There we go. So, we've got our two yarn strands on our tapestry needle, and now we're just going to take our hat, and we're going to put our needle through the top of our hat, through that little hole, and pull it through. Cool. So now, it's right at the center of our hat. Looking pretty good. Okay, so now, we're going to bring our hat inside out and we're going to weave in these ends. So, for the pom pom, what I like to do first is I like to take one of these strands of yarn and just insert it into a stitch really close to the center. That anchors it in place. Then, what I do is I make a knot. Make a knot and just pull it really tight. And then, we can weave in these ends. So, because I want my pompom to be really secure, I'm probably going to weave in about six or seven times. So, I'm just going to go into some of these purl stitches here and just weave in my pom pom. Just like that. Keeping it pretty tight because I do not want it to be flopping around. I want it to be pretty secure. So, here we go, just weaving it into the stitches. Oops, that's not a stitch. Here we go. All right, and let's do this with the other side, as well. So we're going to weave this in like that. Great, and, find some purl stitches for this tapestry needle to go through. So, let's work on this side because we did the other side previously. Here we go. Let's do a couple more stitches over here. Looks pretty good. All right, great. So, let's take a look at our pom pom now. Pretty good. It looks pretty secure and it looks great on our hat. Pretty cool. If this looks good to you, then you are officially done this hat. Go try this on, prance around, have a great time. All right. So, that is the slouchy ribbed hat. 13. Explore Creative Classes on Skillshare: