This is Jack’s first Halloween. I’m not much of a Halloween person. I’m over it. I don’t need to dress like a sexy fill-in-the-blank. I’m not out to impress anyone. I was going to put forth some sort of effort with Jack since I have to address every single milestone in his tiny little life.
I dressed him up as a garden gnome, with a bib fashioned out of white felt to look like a beard and a pointy red hat. Here’s a poor-quality iPhone photo:
The hat is just too cute. I discovered after dressing him in green footie pyjamas that he also looks like an elf (no photo, unfortunately). This means the hat can double up for the holidays while I parade Jack around like the little elf child that he is.
The hat is pretty simple if you know how to knit hats. Here’s how I made it.
Materials:
1 skein worsted weight yarn
size 9 circular and double pointed needles
darning needle
Abbreviations:
CO = cast on
k1,p1 = knit 1, purl 1 ribbing
k2tog = knit two stitches together
Directions:
With your ciruclar needle, CO 64 stitches. Knit the last stitch to the first stitch making sure the stitches aren’t twisted on the needles. K1,P1 in the round for 6 rounds.
Knit regularly for 27 more rounds. Place marker at beginning of round. Decrease as follows:
k2tog, K6, repeat till end of round
k 1 round regularly
K2tog, K5, repeat till end of round
k 2 rounds regularly
K2tog, k4, repeat till end of round. Transfer stitches to double points
K 3 rounds regularly
K2tog, k3, repeat till end of round
K 3 rounds regularly
K2tog, k2, repeat till end of round
K 3 rounds regularly
K2tog, k1, repeat till end of round
K2tog, repeat till end of round
Cut yarn leaving an 8-inch tail. With a darning needle, weave in all ends. You can alter the pointyness of the hat by knitting more or fewer rounds between the decrease rounds. I like the cupie-doll look.
Alaska Knit Nat 
Love this hat. Jack is such a cutie. I’ll be making this and trying to make it larger for my 9 year old special needs grandson.
Hi Faye,
I’d love to see how your hat turns out. It should be pretty simple to enlarge the pattern. Please let me know if you have any questions.
Thanks for commenting,
Natasha
So cute. What is your gauge? What size is the hat? 3 mo 6 mo 24 mo? Thanks Jackie
Jackie,
I don’t tend to gauge hats, but this hat fit my son when he was about six months old. I went back and measured and it looks like it’s 4.5 stitches per inch. Hope this helps.
Thanks for commenting,
Natasha
Hi. I’m a rather new knitter and don’t knit with double points. Could this be done without moving the hat to the DPNs? Thanks.
Hi Katie,
When I was a beginning knitter I tried making a hat on circular needles without double points. What happens is as you decrease the stitches the opening of hat becomes smaller and you have less space to work with on the needles. This stretches the remaining stitches across a 16-inch circumference (the length of the circular) and then it’s just too difficult to knit with. I had someone show me how to use double points and I soon realized they aren’t as tricky as they seem.
The only other solution I can give you is you knit the hat on two straight needles and sew it up the back when you’re done, but that requires a pattern such as this one. The downside to knitting on straight needles is you have to purl to create the stockinette stitch. When knitting in the round it does it by itself just by knitting.
I hope that answers your question well enough. I’d say find a knitter with a little more experience to show you how to use double points or look up a YouTube tutorial.
Good luck and thanks for commenting,
Natasha
I’ve just seen this pattern and am thinking of making it for my grandson. In reading the last comments, I’ve seen the same dilemma I had some years back: circular needles which are too long for smaller projects. That’s when I discovered Magic Loop knitting, which allows you to knit projects of any size on circular needles. There are loads of video tutorials on YouTube but one that is clearly explained is this one: https://www.garnstudio.com/video.php?id=120&lang=en I hope you find it as useful as I did.