Short-Rowed Baby Hat

Sometimes it takes more than a little trial-and-error to get an idea into yarn!

At last, after making every possible mistake and inventing a few new ones, recharting and reknitting several times, I have finished an interesting little project for y'all. I considered memorializing my false starts by making a photo of all the strings, swatches, tangles, and messes on the floor by my machine, but in the end I wussed out, discarded all the casualties, and photographed the good hats.

I get frustrated, walk away, but keep on coming back until the problems are solved and any objections the machine raises beaten down.

It's a baby hat, knitted sideways, and the crown shaped by short-rowing. A picot hem is applied later. It's cute; just a little Bernat coordinates yarn. You just need a dab of sport-weight yarn, the finished hat weighing in at just under one ounce. Scraps? Handfuls? You will find a variegated yarn the most interesting, unless you'd like to change colors around the sections of the little hat.

I admit, this is a lot more trouble than just a hem, a rectange, and a gathered top, but it's a fun little pattern and really takes advantage of self-patterning yarn. I like the geometry of the little cap.

Here's the video, in two parts:

Short-Rowed Baby Hat

by Diana Sullivan

Materials: Sport-weight yarn, about 1 ounce (28 grams)

Machine: Standard gauge machine, no ribber or patterning necessary

Cast on 40 stitches with contrasting waste yarn, tension 8, knit a few rows, end with carriage on right.

Knit 1 row, hat color, from right to left

Set machine for short-rowing

Short-row decrease 3 stitches on the right side, knit across, wrap, and knit back (this pattern seems to work better if you do not do automatic wraps)

Repeat until the needles are on hold to #3 right.

Knit across all stitches, that completes one triangle (carriage is on right)

Make 10 trianges, 140 rows

Take off on waste yarn

Rehang side of knitting, wrong side facing, picking up two stitches for every three rows, and knit an 8-row picot hem. Pick the hem up, knit across as loosely as possible and cast-off.

Kitchener stitch the seam, remove waste yarn, mattress stitch the hem and gather up the hole at the top. Hide the ends. You're finished!