Anyway, a hat was requested and the request was specific enough for me to be able to choose the pattern and yarn. But there were requirements. It had to be black and it had to be manly - nothing fancy he said.
I knew of just the pattern - Naylor Street, and I had some lovely Plucky that would be perfect. I set to cast on.
Everyone seems to have a favorite cast-on. My go to cast-on is the long tail method that my grandmother taught me when I was learning to knit. The only problem is that I can't seem to set aside the right amount of tail. I heard that you can wrap the yarn around the needle 10 times and then use that as a the 10 stitch measurement to cast on. I did this with this hat, and it seemed way too long. But I kept going, I was following a rule. I was about half way done and I should have stopped, but I didn't. When I got to the right number of stitches on the needles I had about 3 FEET of tail left! How did that happen? I must have miss counted. So I started over. The second time showed promise. But again, way too long a tail - about 2 feet. I have no idea where I was going wrong. The tail was over my thumb while casting on so I was using the "correct" yarn.
The third time, I decided to be "smart" and measured the space between first and last stitches of the horrible cast on knowing that had to be the right measurement. And theoretically it should have worked. So this was the long way of excusing myself for this extra long tail.
No way was I going to start again so I just kept going and despite the crazy start the hat itself turned out lovely. But it still leaves me wondering about cast-ons options.
I polled the knit night group:
- Person A would just knit it into the beginning, holding the tail and working yarn together.
- Person B would just leave it as I did.
- Person C would have cast on again.
- Person D doesn't like long tail and only uses the cable cast on.
What say you smart knitters out there - What would you do?
Don't forget about the sale!
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