Frann Marr's Circular Cast On and a hat

Today I've got a quick hat to show you but before I do I wanted to share this mini tutorial for a pretty cast on. It works well for knitting things with a circular shape, such as a hat or a ball. I like the way it leaves a star shape at the top of the hat.

Firstly you need to make a slip knot. There are hundreds of videos and instructions out there so I'm going to assume you know how to do this. You need to make sure that the slip knot tightens by pulling the tail end of the yarn, not the working end



For this cast on I worked 12 stitches. Obviously you may need to adjust this depending on what your pattern tells you :-)

Knit a stitch through the slip knot but leave the slip knot on the left needle (new stitch is on the right like normal). Do a yarn over and then knit another stitch through the slip knot again, 3 stitches on the right needle and 1 slip knot on the left.

Keep repeating the YO and then knitting 1 stitch until there are 11 stitches on the right needle (or one less than you need for your cast on)



Finally make a purl stitch through the slip knot and drop the slip knot from your left needle.





Divide the stitches up for your favourite method of small diameter knitting (magic loop, 2 circulars, DPN's) and follow your pattern's instructions like normal.

When you have knitted a few rounds you can tighten up the cast on. This is my favourite bit. It starts off looking messy and holey like this



But then you pull on the tail of the original slip knot and it tightens up to look like this :-D



Neat and pretty :-)

So now I've waffled on about how I cast on for my hat, it's about time I showed you how it turned out :-)












I love the sweet little ear flaps!


 
It's made using some Lorna's Laces sock yarn that the lovely Nics Knots sent me as a prize. The pattern is by Sarah Ronchetti and is called Taupo. It is sized from premature to large adult and is perfect for using up your sock yarn scraps. This one is the child size and I used 41g of yarn.



Linking up with WIP Wednesday and Yarn Along