How to Knit a Hat

Long tail cast on eats yarn from the tail end, and running out at stitch 94 means starting over. Wrap the yarn around the needle shaft ten times and note how long that stretch of yarn is. That is roughly what ten cast-on stitches will use.

Pull off ten times that length for 100 stitches, then add another six inches so you have something to weave in later. Fold the yarn back and forth to count it out rather than trying to eyeball a long piece across the table.

Make a slip knot where the tail measurement ended and slide it onto one needle tip. Drape the tail over your thumb and the working yarn over your index finger, holding both ends down in your palm.

Bring the needle up under the loop on your thumb, over and around the yarn on your finger, then back down through the thumb loop. Let the thumb loop drop and pull it snug. Cast on 100 stitches for the small size, or whatever count your pattern gives for the size you want.

Set the whole round down on the table in a circle. Run a finger all the way around and check that the braided cast-on edge faces the inside at every point, with no stitch flipped over the cord. A twist here is permanent once you knit the round closed.

Slide a stitch marker onto the right needle. Everything after that marker is the start of a new round, which is the only way to track where you are when there is no seam and no end of row to tell you.

Knit the first two stitches with the working yarn behind the needles. Bring the yarn to the front between the two tips, purl the next two, then send it to the back again. That swap is the whole pattern, repeated to the end of the round.

Slip the marker across and carry on. If you put the hat down mid-round, look at the last few stitches you worked. A purl sits with a little bar below the needle and a knit sits smooth, so the fabric tells you what comes next.

Rib squashes flat on the table and looks shorter than it is, so lift the tube and let it hang before you measure. You want enough height to fold a brim up and still cover the top of the head.

Your pattern gives a number for each size. Measure against a tape without stretching the fabric out, and stop after a complete knit two purl two round so the crown decreases start in the right place.

Push the right needle through the front of the first two stitches at the same time and knit them as though they were one. Purl the next two, then repeat knit two together, purl two, around. A 100 stitch round comes off the needle at 75.

The rounds after that alternate. One works knit one, purl two straight through with no shaping. The next decreases on the purls instead, with a purl two together. Follow the pattern round by round and the top starts pulling into a dome.

Around the fourth or fifth crown round the stitches stop reaching around a 16 inch cord, and fighting them gets old fast. Work the next round with a much longer circular in your right hand and let every finished stitch land on the new needle.

After roughly two dozen stitches, pull a loop of the long cord out between two stitches and keep going. That loop splits the round in half and gives you the magic loop. Double-pointed needles do the same job if you get on better with them.

Once the final decrease round leaves a small handful of stitches, cut the yarn about 20 inches out and thread it on a yarn needle. Pass the needle knitwise through each live stitch, then slide them off the tips only when every one is caught.

Draw the tail up steadily until the opening closes. It will want to spring back open, so run the needle around the ring of stitches two or three more times, turn the hat inside out and do it once more from that side. Then weave both ends in.