Knitting the Crown of the Preemie Hat

Knitting the crown of the Seemingly Seamless 2-Needle Preemie Hat is pretty straight forward. I have a couple of tips to share that you might not have come across before, though.

Some comments about the design of the crown

From a design perspective, I wanted to point out how the columns of lace and ribbing are brought up straight into the crown rather than a “swirl” as you might be more familiar with.

The crown is shaped by decreasing evenly across the row within the ribbed columns. Meantime, the 2-stitch twisted selvedge at each end of the row continues as established, because that is going to be important to how the hat is seamed. Also, the columns of lacy herringbone pattern stitch are retained as long as possible until there are no longer enough stitches to make this possible (Crown Row 8, which is the next to last row of the crown shaping).

The decrease rows of the crown have been completed

After completing Crown Row 9, only 8 stitches remain, and your hat will look similar to the above picture.

Leave a long yarn tail for seaming

In preparation for seaming, it is helpful to cut the yarn tail long enough to complete the job without having extra ends to weave in later. For the preemie hat size as planned, I’ve worked out that a 48″ yarn tail seems to be about right. It won’t hurt to leave a bit extra just in case. But on the other hand, a too-long yarn tail can be more fiddly to work with.

A tapestry needle threaded with the yarn tail is used for gathering the 8 stitches and for seaming. A tip for working with a very long yarn tail is to double-up the length when inserting the yarn into the tapestry needle.

Doubled yarn tail threaded through tapestry needle

Later on as the yarn tail is used up, readjust the amount doubled-up. Eventually the yarn tail will be short enough to handle with just a single strand inserted through the needle eye.

If you are making your hat larger, I guesstimate that leaving a tail 8 times the length of the fabric to be seamed should be about right. But I haven’t checked this out for all possible gauges and situations, so that is just a word of caution. It won’t hurt if your yarn tail is not long enough to finish the seam. It’s just that you will have to add in another piece of yarn and have more ends to weave in later. So hopefully the tip about doubling the yarn tail (or possibly even tripling) will help you leave a plenty long enough tail, while still minimizing the fiddling of a too-long tail.

Gathering the stitches at the top of the crown

Now we are ready to gather those 8 stitches with the yarn tail and remove them from the knitting needle.

Even though the hat has been knit back and forth in rows, I like to gather the stitches starting at the end of the row furthest from the yarn tail. This will pull the stitches into a circle.

If your stitches are on a straight needle, move them to your other needle so that the stitches will be arranged with the first stitch to the gathered  closest to the needle point. If you are working flat on a circular needle as I’ve been, just push the stitches to the other end of the circular needle. Then you are ready to gather those stitches into a circle. Tighten the tail to close up the circle.

An improved approach to gathering these last few stitches is to use a weaving technique. I call it a Gathered Woven Closure. It makes a tidy and snug closure. It’s not necessary for this preemie hat, but give it a try if you’d like to. Or just keep it in mind to try when you make your next item that requires closing off the last few stitches in a circular manner.

The yarn tail has been pulled through the remaining 8 stitches

There’s only one more step left in completing the hat, and that is to sew the seam. Have you already guessed why you need such a long yarn tail?