Hats made on the Brother KH260 Knitting Machine and KR260 Ribber using DK, 8 ply, light worsted yarn. Can do faux rib.

Hats made on the Brother KH260 Knitting Machine and KR260 Ribber using DK, 8 ply, light worsted yarn.

When I first started using my Brother bulky/chunky I experimented with st's and rows needed until I settled on these st's and rows for a great size small/medium hat. 

 

Tension I have on one hat that I made is 19 st's per 4 inches and 25 rows per 4 inches, this tension could differ from yarn to yarn, but I still use the same stitch and row count on them all.

Simply written I did the following.

With main bed and ribber cast on 85 st's for a 1x1 rib according to the manual.
I do not count the cast on row, but the first 3 rows from the instructions of the manual is counted.
With T1 work 20 (includes the first 3 rows in the count of 20) rows 1x1 rib, increase T to T3 on both beds for row 21 (fold hem), decrease T to T1 for next 20 rows.
Total of 41 rows of 1x1 rib.
Move all needles up to main bed, for the folded rib band, hang the st's from the beginning row.
Using T3 knit 54 rows.
Move eon needle onto it's neighbor and work 1 final row.
Leave a long tail, break yarn and gather st's for the crown.
Secure crown and mattress stitch the sides and the folded rib.

 Handy Notes

• eon = ever other needle
• T = tension
  

For a childs hat, pre teen.
same tension as above, 80 st's, 31 rows rib, and 55 rows for top of hat.

For a large hat I add just a couple of st's and 5 more rows.

I have used my sizing with a faux rib of 3x1 and it's just a bit stretchier than using the ribber, below are two identical hats, but one is using the 3x1 faux rib.

When using the punch card, I begin on row 2 of the main body of the hat.

When making cables I use the same sizing.

I always use the seven weights.

I have been and still am experimenting with an inner layer for the hat to hide the Intarsia lengths of yarn.
For that I first experimented with making the inner of the hat first and only using eon for the length of 55 rows, which mirrored the front, BUT it turned out too long as eon is very stretchy, so next time I do that I will only do 45 rows and see how that goes.

I also tried to knit on the main bed to the row count of the height of the punch card pattern, transfer the needles down to the ribber, attach the ribber comb, knit the 1x1 rib for 41 rows, then up to the main bed and use the punch card to the end of the patterning rows (matching the inside of the hat), then hung the hem and knitted to the 55 rows of the hat. Kind of like this ear flap hat below but without the ear flaps and adding the rib.

 

I'm trying to use short yarn changing punch cards where I don't have all of this bother, but if I like something enough, I'll go back to those extremes.

In the picture above, it shows the division for a fully fashioned decrease top of the hat which can be done with the sizing I have given, I divided the 55 rows and st count by 4, so it's all done in quarters. I ended up with 58 rows in total, but that was fine.

In the facebook group Machine Knitting Beginners and Returners Circle  Jason Lightoller made a video of how to do this type of decreases for the top of a hat, I was so glad when he made that video as it simplified the whole process, so thank you once again Jason.

 

Well I won't bore you anymore, but check out the tab on my blog to see punch cards you can punch the link is here.