Striped Rows Hat
by Susan King ©2015

This beautiful hat was created on the new Large Gauge Dragon loom by Facebook Kiss Club member Susan King.  This is Susan's first pattern and we think she's really learned to tame her Dragon!  Congrats Susan on a job well done, you've created a winner!  

Inspired by Charity Windham’s Bulky Striped Slouchy Hat

This simple hat is super quick to knit on the Kiss Dragon loom and works up great in self-striping yarn.  For my hat, I used yarn from a mill ends bag.  The yarn is most likely Charisma in the Sunny Day colorway, which is classified as #5, Bulky. The gauge is 10 stitches and 24 rows = 4” in the pattern stitch.  I made my hat approximately 9” long before beginning the cast off.

To make this hat, you need to be able to do the knit stitch and the purl stitch on the Dragon loom.  I set my loom up for 36 pegs because I wanted to use a ribbed brim, so I wanted it to be a bit smaller than it would have been using all 42 pegs of the Dragon.  I cast on using Kate Winslow’s (The Answer Lady) long tail cast on.  The video for this cast on can be found here.

After completing the cast on, I began the brim of the hat.  I did a 2X2 rib stitch for the brim.  Translated, that simply means that I knit two stitches then purled two stitches for each row of the brim.  Since 36 divides nicely by 4, the ribs turned out very well, and one row ended where the next began.  I did 10 rows of K2, P2 for the brim.

After completing the brim, I knit every stitch for 5 rows.  

For the second group, I purled every stitch for 5 rows.

I repeated this 1 time, for a total of 2 sets, then I knit the last 5 rows.  This made the hat about 9 inches long.  If you want more ‘slouch’ to your hat, you could add another repeat of the knit 5 rows, purl 5 rows group.

To bind off the hat, I used Jeannie Phillips Flat Drawstring Cast Off, the video for which can be found here.

The hat is nice and stretchy and the Charisma yarn has a nice drape, making the hat very soft, and comfy.  My head measures 22”, and the hat fits me nicely.  If I were going to use a heavier yarn, I would go with more pegs.