Hat Help Needed!

#1

My sister and her husband are MN Viking fans. So I got some nice and bright purple and yellow acrylic yarn so I can make purple and yellow striped hats. I would like to knit ribbed hats because ribbing has give.

Here are my problems/questions

  1. I do not have access to their heads, so what is a good guess regarding how many stitches to cast on?

  2. is there a way do make this hat in the round w/out having to resort to doing the decreases using DPNs (I only have one set of four and am hours away from a store)? If so, what is that way?

  3. How do I make a swatch using circulars (this will be my first foray into circular knitting?

Thanks,
Julie

#2

First off, I’d say that if you are doing the hats in ribbing, it is not so crucial how many stitches you cast on because ribbing is very stretchy, as long as you don’t cast on way too many. A finished hat in ribbing will probably fit both a man’s and woman’s head, again because of the ribs, it will stretch to whatever size is needed.

Take a look at the hat section at www.knittingpatterncentral.com to get an idea of how many stitches get cast on for a hat using the weight of yarn you intend to use and go from there. Also, the free patterns section on this site has some good basic hat patterns that you should be able to adjust.

Doing the decreases without needing dpns, you can use either magic loop knitting or knitting in the round with 2 circular needles. You can find videos for both of these methods here under the heading of small diameter circular knitting.

Swatching in the round, there are some tips in this post:
http://www.knittinghelp.com/knitting/forum/viewtopic.php?p=90531#90531

#3

Thanks knitqueen!

I found exactly the hat I was looking for at knittingpatterncentral.com.

Julie