Hat in the round!

Last summer, I decided to finally attempt knitting in the round. It looks so great (no seams!) and so many patterns that I loved called for it, so I decided to do it. My earlier attempts had been disasters because the only way I knew how to cast on left me with tons of yarn in between stitches, making it all a huge mess. So I learned a new kind of much prettier and only slightly more complicated casting on, and then just went at it. My boyfriend-at-the-time and I took turns reading Harry Potter aloud, and I would knit as I listened to him read. And I kept knitting and knitting and knitting ...



Skills I learned: Cable casting on
Knitting in the round (with circular and double pointed needles!)
Patience (ha!)

The variagated yarn made a really neat pattern that was fun to watch, which was good, because this was the largest project I'd undertaken at the time. This was also the project on which I learned that stockingette stitch curls if it's at the edge! You can see how the hat has a rolled brim -- that's what this kind of stitch pattern does naturally. Crazy! And at times, incovenient.



Here is the top of the finished hat, which is most people's favorite part, though I'm not as pleased with the yarn color patterns on it as on the rest of the hat. I had to use double pointed needles to finish it up, something I was absolutely terrified of, but it turned out to not be that bad! I'm still not really a big fan of dpns, greatly preferring circular needles because they're easier and so much faster, but I can definitely use them now when necessary.