Okay, I see I am not the only one to be confused about the instructions. “Do not turn work/slip stitches to beg of needle to be worked again” is just weird. Plus the CDD is too fiddly with moving the marker every row. I think I’ll do as someone others did & do SSK/K2tog on either side of center stitch.

I made one 8” long I-cord on size 3 needles, attached the end to the kerchief & picked up 90 stitches across the top. I switched to the variegated yarn, did 5 rows of SS with the size 5 needle, BO, then made the I-cord for the other end with the solid yarn that I hadn’t cut. Pretty tricky! As I’d hoped, the SS rolled to cover up the messy picked up stitches.

I see I should have CO more stitches since I used DK weight yarn. I think I prefer knitting in the other direction, so I can just continue knitting until the headband part is wide enough.