Midgauge Merge of Two beanie designs elements into one beanie on the machine

HybridSJ's Quarter Crown Beanie idea

Okey dokey, I'm workshopping a hand knit beanie pattern, Two by Two Basic Beanie to a machine knit version. The designer, Kate Gondwana, has given me permission to use her stitches and cm, which I've converted into rows, with the understanding that I'll link them to this blog post. Thank you Kate, having your numbers makes my life easier.

2nd mock rib, 3rd size exactly

My midgauge is a KX350, but I'm sure SK860, LK150 etc users can put their own 8ply/DK yarns to good use, with the added bonus of using up some of that fluffy yarn that people seem to think I need their mistaken buys in days gone by.

T5: The sts and row measurement conversions are taken from the Two by Two pattern for overall size, with Ravelry user HybridSJ's Quarter Crown for midgauge machines. The quarter crown hat pattern will be issued by HybridSJ, but it's not yet. I'll link it when it's done.

This is straight from Kate's pattern: 

Size	Head Size	DK/8ply		Size	Head Size	DK/8ply
baby	40cm (16”)	55m/60yds		older child	52cm (21”)	90m/100yds
toddler	45cm (18”)	65m/70yds		sm adult	55cm (22”)	110m/120yds
younger child	50cm (20”)	75m/80yds		lg adult	60cm (24”)	130m/145yds

1st size: 72 sts - these were too small for the need this time
2nd size: 80 sts - not needed this time.

3rd size: 88 sts +2sts. first with hung hem and the second with mock rib

4th size: 96 sts +2sts . Pink fluffy T7 and purpley/ bluey/pinky mottle.

5th size: 104 sts +2sts. Deep pin with 16row mock rib - too wide 

6th size: 112 - olive green. Could reduce the rows before crown by 12 if no turn up is needed. A 2x1 relatched rib - hung hem would be better, not worth the bother of relatching IMO.

Cast On: all PLUS 2 for seam.. 72, 80, (88, 96), 104, 112 sts. RC000
Ribbing: If using a ribber 2/2 (not sure about these numbers: T7/7)  8, 8, (10, 10), 12, 12RC (no reset)

or double for hung hem but -1 RC, do +1 or 2MT then RC000 the either same yarn or I did an extra two rows on fluffy yarn, it didn’t seem to have the stretch - maybe do at MT+1? next time? It certainly did use up some scraps. In the end I liked the mock rib best, no extra rows needed.

Continue to RC: 28,34, (38, 42,) 50, 52 RC, where we leave Kate's pattern.

(until hat measures: 9.5, 11, (12, 13.5), 14, 14.5cm, from the cast-on edge).

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HybridSJ has an interesting Quarter Crown hat idea  that I’m doing instead of the decreases in the hand knit - we all know what a pain that is: 

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The Quarter Crown Hat (please see these detailed instructions for clarity- I dilute them down to suit me).

These are the needle divisions, starting from the right set (bold) and then the next section:

Size 1: 74 = 19/18/18/19 (+2 each end 1st and 4th set for seaming)

Size 2: 82 = 21/20/20/21 (+2 for seaming)

Size 3: 90 = 23/22/22/23 (+2 for seaming.) 

Size 4: 98 = 25/24/24/25 (+2 for seaming.) 

Size 5: 106 - 27/26/26/27 (+2 for seaming.)

Size 6: 114 = 29/28/28/29 (+2 for seaming)

Put all but last 19, 21, (23, 25,) 27, 29 in hold. 
-1 eee 2R with extra ONE st on outer ends. 
then till 5sts left on both ends 

Just make sure that you leave enough yarn when starting the next section to sew in both ends, I left one of the needles on that first row to make sure I didn't have 2cm, oops!!!

and 4sts left on the middle two. 
take them off with needles 

Next two sections are 18, 20, (22, 24,) 26, 28 sts, reduce and at the same time, SAYG inside seams.

Last 19, 21, (23, 25,) 27, 28 as first, but the last three sts are on the LH side.

All sizes: 18 sts remain, leave a tail to pull in remaining sts and sew seam.

Thread the 18 sts with tail end of yarn, sew seam, weave in ends.

This was the first one - not enough rows before the crown

2nd one, Hung hem, with the adjusted rows before the crown
I think the fully bit is too wide, more like a brim

1st mock rib with 16 rows - too many but
I liked the mock best

Basketweave Stitch on the Machine

I wanted to see if it was feasible to do this stitch on the machine, so I fired up the SK155 and gave it a burl. It's basically a single stitch cable. Youtube has handknitting instructions. My first pitiful attempt was on the 10ply dark brown Bendi wool, which was a difficult colour to see were it all went horribly wrong while I was doing it, and I used T9 for that samples, good for stitch size wise, but otherwise no - not really a workable swatch...

Machine: SK155 Chulky 9mm

Yarn: 12ply Cleckheaton orange wool that Bev gave me - yarn needs to have a bit of give.

T10: really do need a large stitch size to be able to cope with the transfers.

Cast on: I did a crochet cast on over 20 needles. The handknit instructions say an even number of stitches.

Row 1: after crochet cast on,knit one row

Row 2 Prep: Transfer EON to the right, skipping over needles still in work
Needles 1 and 2 cross, 2 goes over 1.

Row 2: all stitches transferred (watch out for the gatepegs)
Needles 2 and 3 cross, 2 goes over 3

Row 2 knitted - It looks like the sts are in "pairs"
which get split up to the adjacent pair each row

Row 3 Prep: On LH side move last sts to adjacent needle
then EON transfer over remaining needles, to the right.
The last stitch each end isn't cabled,
just moves one needle in or outwards.

Row 3 transfers complete

And that's it. Each end's needles go in and out of work depending on the transfers.
Row 1, transfer EON to the left, knit one row - a one stitch cable.
Row 2, transfer first stitch to adjacent needle, then transfer EON to the right. One stitch on each end is not transferred.

Repeat these two rows. cabling first to the left, then next row to the right, alternating the end needles in and out of work as required. Carriage is going to the left - transfer to the left, Carriage is going to the right, transfers go right. The only thing I'd do on a piece of knitting is on the very last row, knit the MT, in this case it was done MT+4, so that final row should have been T6, it would look better.

I'm not sure about this, but if I wanted to sew it up, I'd might try an extra stitch each side to make it easier to do that. That's not what I did on this sample and it will be a much bigger stitch. Now I've had another look, I think it would be easy enough to seam it on thicker wool. Maybe if I decided to do this on the standard 4.5 machine? it would be more difficult to see? Maybe I'll do that another day.

Anyways, here's the sample, I was fiddling around with dropping down to relatch, sometimes it's quicker to do that than drag out the ribber for a little bit of ribbing on not many rows.

Added the tape measure for reference.

What it looks like on the other side