I am starting a lovely warm hat for my friend.
Three questions:
I want to rib in two different colors, does this involved casting on in two different colors and then knitting fairisle to carry over the yarn as you knit? I want to k3 p3 and so far I’ve cast on 3 for one color, 3 of the next, alternating, is this a correct way to do this? It’s taking a painful amount of time to do this.
2nd Q: His head is 22" to start with but I am knitting on 29" circular needle and I have to stretch the yarn to fit all the way around, do I need less length in the circular or will it turn out fitting his head no matter the stretching?
3rd Q: The yarn I’m knitting is 8 stitches/inch, his head is 22" like I said, so 176 stitches to cast on, but I’m ribbing it and I’v heard ribbing stretches, so if I knit it to fit his head, will it not be snug, should I cast on a less amount of stitches?
Thank you!
ps. this is the hat pattern I’m following, though I have different yarn, different needle size (us3) and different colors:)
I’m not sure about the ribbing (I’ve not done any real colorwork yet), but the pattern you referenced calls for a 16" circular rather than a 29". The one hat I tried knitting on a much larger circ than the pattern called for didn’t work and was way beyond frustrating. Stretching the yarn around just created a lot of gapping and the hat looked bad. It was a practice hat just to get the techinque, so I just let my kids play with it, but I would say it’s definitely worth investing in a correctly sized needle!
The hat pattern I use the most says to make the hat 1 to 2 inches less than the head circumference. Otherwise it will just sit there, when you really want it to stretch open a bit when it’s worn.
Thank you very much Ingrid! And you too, Lisa. This does help much. And ingrid, that makes sense. If I do cast on in a single color and then start ribbing in the two colors on the second row, will it look like there is a trim or will that blend in?
Thank you in advance!
The very edge will be in one color like a trim. I’ve never co in two colors before so I"m not sure how it would work. Be sure to share a picture in What’cha Knittin when you’re done!
It’s called corrugated ribbing, search for more. Make sure you get gauge well because this type of ribbing is very tight and not stretchy. Do some research on strandinf - Knitty has a good article, and Eunny’s blog in a Tips and Tricks post.