Created as an example for Knit Purl’s Following a Pattern classes, this hat has also turned out to be wonderful for keeping my ears warm.

I used the tubular cast-on demonstrated in the video near the top of this page. For my students, I recommend a loose long-tail cast-on.

I worked in rib for 23 rounds or about 2.5″ (measured gently stretched) and then worked in St st for about 4″ before decreasing.

To avoid a jog between decreases on my stripeless hat, I worked the set-up rnd as follows: K13, pm, [K26, pm] three times, k13. Then I worked the dec rnd like this: [K to 2 sts before marker, SSK, sm, k2tog] 4 times, k to end. If I’d done stripes, I probably would have followed the original pattern to hide the color jogs within the decreases. I also might have used an approach to jogless jogs more like this one.

After reading project notes on Ravelry about making the decreases look tidier, I arranged my double-pointed needles so that the decreases were worked in the center of each needle. After working each k2tog, I pulled my yarn tight.

If you wanted a spiral look to your decreases, you could place a marker every 13 sts on the set-up rnd. Then work Crown Rnd 1 as follows: K to 2 sts before marker, k2tog; rep from * to end.