I’m a knitting returnee, not having knitted in about 35 years, so I’m an advanced beginner. I have most of the basics down and a few advanced tips. I’m knitting what started as a simple flat ribbed hat, actually my second:
The ribbed cuff is 2" long, and the remainder of the hat is about 7 1/2" long.
But I’ve fallen in love with this cable:
I have 80 stitches cast on and am working up the ribs on the cuff. Can I adapt this braid for the crown of the hat? It’s 13 stitches across, but I can add or subtract stitches between the cables. I’m not very good with numbers, so can anyone figure out the new pattern? or am I asking too much? Also the braided portion won’t be as stretchy as the original ribs.
Sure, 13 times 6 is 78 so you can dec 2 sts on the last row of ribbing and use the cable pattern 6 times around the hat, as written. When you do the crown decs, do them in the reverse stockinette sts between cables.
Great! But the gauge will be tighter than ribbing. Should I go up one needle size? And will I have too many purls size by side at the seam? I had that problem with a cable hat I did years ago, even though, unlike this hat, the cable was already in the pattern.
Yep, when you switch to the main part go up a size, that’ll help make your cables not so tight. The main cable is 6 sts and the original repeat is 9, it said you could adjust it by putting additional sts between the cables to make the repeat 13. Since that includes 4 sts on each side of them for edge sts when knit flat, you could probably keep the 2 sts I said to dec to make 6, then you could put an extra cable in there instead of the extra edge sts and will end up with 7 cables around.
6st x 7 cables= 42 st for the cables, leaving 38 stitches, divided over 8 spaces= 4P between each cable. At the back seam you have 7P + 7P , and some disappear into the seam. Correct? Why not 8 cables?
I got confused because the braid pattern says “cable panel is 9 st across.” But the cable itself is 6.
Yes, the cable panel includes the knit and purl sts before and after it. Those are the ones where you can add extra stitches - “To increase the width of the panel, add stitches in Reverse Stockinette Stitch to each side. For instance you can increase the panel’s width to 13 stitches by adding two stitches to each side, purling on the odd numbered rows and knitting on the even rows.”