The cast-on I love best, called long-tail, German or continental, is much easier than it looks. It greatly simplifies things if, when you are learning, you use two colors of yarn, because then you can see better if you mess up. The way I see it, it takes about three steps to do this cast-on. I'm going to call the yarn underneath waste even though it's not, just to simplify my terms.
This is the starting position for me when I do this.
This is the first step. My needle tip wraps around, toward me, and then through the loop created over my left thumb.
Grab the working yarn with the needle and bring it back through that loop.
Release the left-thumb loop and pull the waste yarn down, but not too tight.
One stitch down.
And, another hat! This time with 3x1 ribbing. To decrease, divide hat into four sets of stitches. On every other round, perform a double decrease on one of the k3 ribs, one in each of the four sets. On the next decrease round, double decrease on the k3 rib to the right (or left) of the first one and so on until you have a p1, k1 hat. If you use five dpns to work this, your stitches will already be divided into four groups, so no counting! Once you're down to p1, k1, mentally divide the stitches into eight sections and proceed. My first decrease round in this area would have read: ssk, p2 around. (my hat started with 64 stitches). Then one round as worked, then ssk, p2 around, one plain, then ssk, p1, plain, then ssk around until you have 4 stitches left.
This is the hat, with my cat, Boomer, lying beside it.
Boomer inspecting hat on glass head.
My notes.
Download episode 19.
