Slugs on the Refrigerator

Rope Bracelet

 

So, not quite what I planned, but how about a quick little tutorial on a rope bracelet?  You see, I had to clean my house today and didn't have time to make a full rope scarf, which is a similar sort of idea, but a bit more involved (I can't give away all of my tricks, now can I ;) ). 

 

Here's what you need:

3x 14ft lengths of bulky wool (or any reasonably thick yarn)

9mm/ Size 13 Crochet Hook

(Crocheters, this is just a thick length of chain. Instructions below are for non-crocheters)

 

Instructions:

Holding the 3 ends of yarn together, tie a slip knot. Leave at least a 4inch tail after the knot.

 

 

Insert your hook into the loop and pull tight.

Put your yarn over the hook.

 

And pull it through

Repeat the 2 previous steps until your rope measures 40 inches in length

You should be left with a reasonably lengthy tail of yarn at the working end of the chain.  Pull this through your last loop. Ensuring your rope isn't twisted, tie the ends together using a normal knot

Loop the rope around your wrist.  It should be loose and go around 4 times for an average size wrist.

Slip the bracelet off and hold in your non-dominant hand, holding the strand of rope that goes across the project firmly.

Take the longer ends of yarn and start wrapping them tightly around all of the strands of rope.  Make sure your shorter tail is hanging out the bottom.

Tie the two ends off in a knot.

Stick your hook through the wrap and hook the loose ends, pulling them through into the wrap.  Hide the ends in the wrap, trim if necessary, but not too short.

It should all be neat and tidy.

Unlike my bedroom floor.

I did say I was supposed to be cleaning the house.

 

Sunshine and Showers - Spring 2012

There is no such thing as bad weather. Only bad clothing.

-------

Inspired by the cold changeability that these next few months bring to Scotland.  I've never seen so many rainbows...or so much rain.

These items are now all in my etsy shop, along with all other hats open now for custom orders.  The patterns for the Herringbone and Intrepid Explorer hats and the owl cable welly warmers are also up on etsy.  Mitten pattern, ravelry listings and folksy site to follow.

Thank you all...for your support and encouragement and, well, everything.

Come back tomorrow for a quick tutorial on the rope scarf!!

 

North Sea Kipper Handwarmers

Kevin lost his beautiful cabled handwarmers made out of glorious and expensive Posh Yarn...can we have a collective "grrr"?  

So I made him some new ones, inspired by the Herringbone Neck Warmer I made my mother in law for Christmas. This time, Kev's were made with cheap yarn. That knit up incredibly quickly.  And then I wrote up the pattern so I wouldn't forget when he loses them again. 

 

They are made out of Wendy DK held double. This makes a sort of heavy Aran/Chunky wool, but traps air in between the fibers making them warm and squishy.  You need one ball, just pull the second end out of the middle and knit away.

Kev wanted ribbing around the thumbs, but I prefer the sleekness of just a thumbhole, but I have included optional instructions. 

 

Pattern is available here:   Download North Sea Kippers

The matching hat is available here.

 and (because I know some folk prefer web-based versions) its copied below!

Don't forget to ravel your finished items here

--------

North Sea Kippers

 

 

Herringbone handwarmers perfect for him and her, with optional thumb ribbing. Knit with DK yarn held double, these are lovely warm mitts for cold winter days.

 

 

This pattern is written for DK yarn held double which traps extra air in the stitches making the mitts lovely and warm. Aran weight yarn can also be used, but please check your gauge and size accordingly. You can size up by using larger needles or adding or subtracting stitches in multiples of 4.

© Kat Goldin 2011.

 

© Copyright Notice: While you have permission to sell finished items from this pattern, I ask that all items sold credit me, Kathryn Goldin, as the designer with a link back to my website http://www.slugsontherefrigerator.com .Under all circumstances rewriting, reselling, distributing, or copying the pattern itself is prohibited. Thanks for your understanding and cooperation.

There is a matching hat for this pattern available: http://www.slugsontherefrigerator.com/home/north-sea-herringbone-hat.html

Basic Construction

The mitts are worked flat and then seamed. If you choose to add ribbing to the thumbhole, you then pick up stitches using double pointed needles (DPNs) around the opening and knit in rib for 4 rows.

 

Supplies

Any DK weight yarn ( 40g/125m of Wendy Mode DK held double pictured)

Darning needle

Needles

 

• 6.5mm/ size 10.5 Straight Needles (For Medium Sized Mitts)

• 4mm/ size 6 Double Pointed Needles (for optional thumb ribbing)

  or

• 5mm/ size 8 Straight Needles

• 8mm/ size 11 Straight Needles (For Large Sized Mitts)

   

Gauge

For Medium: 19 stitches and 12.5 rows in 4in in herringbone stitch

For Large: 18 stitches and 12 rows in 4in in herringbone stitch

 

Stitches and Abbreviations

CO = Cast On

K = knit

P = purl

p2tog = purl 2 together

sl1 = slip one stitch from left to right needle as if to purl
psso = Pass the Slipped Stitch Over

For Medium mitts:

Using your 5mm straight needles CO 32 Stitches

K2,P2 for 4 rows then switch to the 6.5mm/size 10.5 needles and begin herringbone pattern:

Row 1: K1, * sl1, k1, psso, knitting through back loop as you psso; repeat until 1 stitch remains on left needle *, K1.
Row 2: p2tog, but keep on left needle, p 1st stitch again and drop both stitches
off needle. Continue to end of row

(for a video of the herringbone stitch pattern in English style knitting, see the pattern for the Herringbone Neck Warmer:

http://www.loopknits.com/2007/12/11/herringbone-neck-warmer/

for a video of this stitch pattern in Continental style knitting, see my video at:

 

 

Continue stitch pattern until knitting measures 5.5inches in length. On next right side row, begin K2, P2 sequence for 3 rows, then bind off in ribbing.

Final piece should measure 6.5 inches long and 6.5 inches wide.

 

Sewing up:

Decide which end is going to be the top. Fold over and using the seaming stitch of your choice, sew the seam closed for 2 inches. Leave a 1.5 inch gap for the thumbhole, then sew up the remaining 3 inches. Weave in ends.

 

Optional Thumb Ribbing:

For medium mitts, using your 4mm DPNs, pick up 12stitches around the thumb opening, distributed over 2 needles. Using a 3^rd needle, K2, P2 for 4 rows. Bind off in ribbing. Sew in ends.

 

For a range of other patterns and handmade items, please visit my shop http://KatGoldinDesigns.etsy.com

 

 

For Large Mitts:

Using the 5mm straight needles CO 32 Stitches

K2,P2 for 4 rows then switch to the 8mm/size 11 needles begin herringbone pattern:

 

Row 1: K1, * sl1, k1, psso, knitting through back loop as you psso; repeat until 1 stitch remains on left needle *, K1.
Row 2: p2tog, but keep on left needle, p 1st stitch again and drop both stitches
off needle. Continue to end of row.

for a video of the herringbone stitch pattern in English style knitting, see the pattern for the Herringbone Neck Warmer:

http://www.loopknits.com/2007/12/11/herringbone-neck-warmer/

for a video of this stitch pattern in Continental style knitting, see my video at:

 

 

Continue stitch pattern until the knitting measures 7inches in length. On next right side row, begin K2, P2 sequence for 3 rows, then bind off in ribbing.

Final piece should measure 8 inches long and 7 inches wide.

 

Sewing up:

Decide which end is going to be the top. Fold in half lengthwise and using the seaming stitch of your choice, sew the seam closed for 2 inches. Leave a 2 inch gap for the thumbhole, then sew up the remaining 4 inches. Weave in ends.

 

Optional Thumb Ribbing:

For large mitts, using your 4mm DPNs, pick up 16 stitches around the thumb opening, distributed over 2 needles. Using a 3^rd needle, K2, P2 for 4 rows. Bind off in ribbing. Sew in ends.

 

For a range of other patterns and handmade items, please visit my shop http://KatGoldinDesigns.etsy.com 

 

 

Snow Globes A Go-Go

I know I say this about EVERYTHING, but seriously this has to be THE BEST CRAFT EVER.

 

We saw someone making these on the telly the other night, so it was moved to the top of our massive Christmas to-make list.

 

And SO SO worth it.  Ellis slept with his last night.  He wants to make more today.  They are just so fun, easy and impressive.

 

There are lots of tutorials out there on how to make these, but here  through trial and error here is what we found worked best: 

Supplies:

Jars,

Glitter and confetti (confetti worked MUCH better and didn't get EVERYWHERE.  Plus glitter sticks to the figures and the sides of the jar)

Little Christmas figures from the thrift shop and plastic cake toppers from the party store

Mince pie casings or other items to act as bases to raise the figures off the bottom of the globe a bit

Glycerine (home baking aisle of the supermarket)

Hot Glue gun (we went through 6 sticks in an hour!) - when we do it again, I am going to try superglue as the hot glue had a tendancy to give on some of the ceramic figurines

--------

-We just basically glued the figues to the bases or raised them on upturned mince pie casings.  We filled the casings with wet cotton balls or foil so that there wouldn't be big air bubbles in the globes.

- wide mouth jars worked best for a 'scene'

- Once glue sets, fill jar to the top with water, add a goodly squidge of gylcerine to thicken the water and some glitter/confetti.

- Hold over a sink or pan to catch overflow and screw on lid. 

- You can glue the lids shut, but we found it was better not to as inevitably something comes unglued from so much shaking and there are tears and it needs to be fixed.  Just screw on really tightly so small hands can't open it. 

Be prepared to make LOTS.

Paper Doily Snowflakes

How many pictures do I need, right? Doilies from the pound shop - 60 for £1.

Pin It

 

 

Red Friday

The day after Thanksgiving only means one thing...Christmas can begin.

 

It was the day of the year we traditionally spent decorating the house.  Out would come the tree, the garland, the decorations, the strings upon strings on lights that were always missing just one bulb, the Christmas dishes and the hundreds of Nutcrackers.  

Christmas music would play merrily in the background and leftover Turkey sandwhiches as we would fill our bellies as we transformed our house into a Winter Wonderland. It was soooo exciting...for the first half hour, then it just became hard work.  We always had 2 trees.  One enormous fancy one in the front of the house (my favourite was an all white one she did) and then one in the basement with all of our old ornaments - the clothespeg raindeers, the salt dough snowmen, the paper mache snowballs. 

I love carrying over traditions from my childhood.  And so today, out will come the Ella Fitzgerald Christmas album and we will *start* on our Christmas preparations.  It would be a massive understatement to say that I am beyond excited to decorate my house this year!!  My head  is just full of the possibilites. So, let the Christmas spirit spread and lets kick off this holiday season with a bit of celebration.

First of all, I am so happy to announce the release of the "Quixie" Hat pattern on etsy and ravelry.  Its a little "quick pixie"/elf/ gnome hat with a chin strap and a button.  I has actually become my favourite hat for when Theo is in the sling - its nice and snug and its cute little point makes him even more adorable.  It *would* be my favourite hat for Georgia, but she threw hers out of the pushchair along with her left welly and her sweatshirt and I can not find them. This is the "Christmas Edition" - only in that the pictures for the pattern are Christmassy.  ( I am picturing a gnome- themed revamp in the spring with WILL involve the purchase of a garden gnome).

Thank you so much to all of my testers! Especially, Riotflower who sorted out the adult sizing. And special thanks to Laura for the name (she also named the Snugosaurus)!!  

But that's not all...

As a thank you for all of the awesome support in this new venture, I am offering a 10% discount on everything in my etsy shop.  All you have to do is 'like' my facebook page to get the code (it seemed like a good way of rewarding fans and readers). Oh and you can totally unlike it later. If you already like it, go to the 'Welcome' page on the left hand column. And if you hate Facebook and think that Mark Zuckerberg is public enemy number 1 - leave a comment and I'll email you the code.

 

 

But wait, there's more!  All of my patterns on ravelry are also 10% off this weekend!  Discount applied at checkout, so go forth and download!

I hope you all have a lovely weekend!!

Snugosaurus

 

The hat was designed last year as a dare on facebook.  The first few ones I made were good, but had problems.  The spines flopped.  The yarn hung out the underside. Sometimes they worked, sometimes they didn't.

 

I hated this hat.  But it is so eye catching (it is the one that was featured on etsy's facebook page), I felt I couldn't let it go.  However, there have been a lot of tears shed over this pattern. I would get a sinking feeling whenever it was ordered and its been ordered a lot. 

But then it was the making of hats over and over and over where I found improvements...ways to structure the spines, a new pentagon pattern, a way of hiding the stray threads and it came together. Man, I used to hate making that hat because it always went wrong.  But making it over and over has ironed out the kinks and now its pretty straightforward, dare I say, almost fool proof. 

 

I think that is why I don't really see myself moving into only designing in the longer term.  I like the making things.  Maybe its too many years in the public sector that means I crave having something concrete to show for my efforts, not only just words on paper. I also like seeing how patterns evolve and making things that really work, both for the 'look' of them, but also as a maker myself.

But words on paper are precisely what I have here...with the testers having tested and having made a fair few myself, I am proud to release the pattern for sale on etsy here and on ravelry here.

 

Edited to say: the name idea was not mine, but a fantastic suggestion from an onlne friend who also named the hat being released on Friday.

Not Your Brother's Jeans(kirt) Tutorial

 Ellis blows through jeans on an almost weekly basis. His skinny little legs and the jeans that fit them make patching a swear-worthy affair, but throwing them away seems like such a waste!! So a new solution was found--> combining upcycling with the ancient art of hand-me-downs between siblings. 

Materials:

Old pair of jeans (these were sized 2-3 years)

Long strip of material for the bottom of the skirt (for an age 2-3 skirt, my material measured 34" by 6.5") 

 

1. Take jeans and cut in a straight line just above the crotch and under the pockets.

 

2. Prepare your skirt material.  Cut it approximately 8" longer than the circumference of the opening of your jeans (longer for a more ruffled skirt, shorter for a more straight skirt...I wanted something with just a bit of flare).  

Use an existing skirt to gauge the width of the material for the bottom of the skirt. I used a strip of material about 6.5" wide. I based this on the width of the pattern on my material, but came out with quite a long skirt for an 18 month old.  However as the jeans are sized 2-3 years, it will be a good length as she grows.

Sew the skirt into a tube by using a french seam.  To do this, fold the material in half, placing the short sides together, wrong sides facing and sew down the edge.

 

 

 Then, turn the tube inside out and sew the seam closed again, encasing the first seam inside the other.

 

3. Hem the bottom of the skirt.

 

4. Using a basting stitch on your machine, sew around the top edge.  Then, pulling on one of the lengths of thread, gather your material until it is the width of the opening jeans.

 

5. Turning the skirt material inside out, place the jeans inside the skirt rightsides together, the gathered end will line up with the cut edge of your jeans. I lined the skirt's seam up with the back seam of the jeans.

 

4. Sew or serge the open end. And ta-dah - a little upcycled skirt out of a pair of jeans that would have been thrown away.  As there is a 3 year gap betwen Georgia and Ellis, the skirt is on the big side for her, but is fine turned over once at the waist.

 

 

------------

No. I am NOT procrastinating.  What do you mean?  OF COURSE I had to make a photograph this skirt yesterday instead of making hats.  Georgia NEEDED it, she didn't have anything clean to wear and making it took just almost exactly the amount of time it would have taken to do the laundry ;).  

Have a fantastic weekend!!

 

And this is why you should photograph your finished object before trying them on your toddler:

 

How To Design Your Own Hat (Part 2: The Math)

For the Math-a-phobic, stay back.  There are sime heavy calculations going on below.  There is nothing wrong with making a hat by eyeballing it or going by a pattern.  This is just the way I like to torture blog readers.

No really, this is most useful for people wanting to write their own designs in multiple sizes. For everyday hat making, its a lot of work to go to and as Joxy eloquently said in yesterday's comments, crochet is so versatile, you just need to know how to increase and decrease, then you are sorted. I would add that hats are stretchy and can forgive a number of sins. Now please forgive me for any that may appear below ;)

*****

 

So, I said yesterday that the method I described was the "easy way".  You basically pick a stitch, crochet a flat circle until it measures close to your diameter and then work even until its the right height.  Its all fine and dandy and pretty no-fool when you are working in simple stitches and in lighter weight wool. 

You can run into problems when you are working in more complex designs and bigger wools.  Basically a completed round may not be anywhere near the diameter of a circle you are needing or you may have a stitch pattern that requires a certain number of stitches in a round. This is where maths can play a crucial role.

The example below is using a US Half Double Crochet (UK Half Treble) for ease. With such a straight forward stitch, you probably will be fine with using a 6 or 8 stitch increase for the flat circle to get to the desired number of stitches to reach your hat circumference. You can just use step 1 to formulate that.  However, I go into the further detail for when we look at lace and more complicated stitches in future posts, where increases need to be more precise. 

You need to know:

- your gauge

- your HAT circumference

- your HAT diameter

Age	Head Size	Hat Size	Hat Height	Flat Circle Diameter
0-6 months	13 - 15in	12 -14  inches	4.5 - 5 inches	4 inches
6-12 months	16 - 19 inches	14 – 18 inches	5.5 inches	4.5 inches
1 – 3 Years	18 - 21 inches	17 – 20 inches	6.5 inches	5.5 inches
4+ years	20 – 22 inches	19 – 21 inches	7.5 inches	6 inches
Women	22 inches	20 inches	8.5 inches	6.5 inches
Men	23 inches	21 inches	9.5 inches	6.75 inches

 As an example, I am going to do the equations for a 1-3 year hat, with a 17inch hat circumference and a 5.5inch diameter. 

GAUGE

First you need to gauge swatch.  For Cascade 220 and a 5mm hook, my gauge is:

14HDC and 11.5 rows = 4inches

In order to simplify things, its easier to use your 1 inch gauge, based on your normal swatch size, in my case:

3.5 HDCs and 2.9 rows in 1 inch 

Armed with this information, I need to figure out how many stitches will make up my circumference and over how many rounds I need to build up those stitches for a nice even crown.

Step 1: Stitches in Hat Circumference

First, lets figure out how many stitches are required for the HAT circumference. 

To do this, you need to multiply the hat circumference by the number of stitches in your gauge.  The number you get is the # of stitches around your final circumference will be.

HAT CIRCUMFERENCE x # of STITCHES IN GAUGE = # of STITCHES in CIRCUMFERENCE

In my example: 17inches x 3.5stitches = 59.5 stitches in circumference

 

Step 2: Rounds in Hat Diameter

Then, you need to multiply the diameter of the required hat size by the number of rows in your gauge swatch. Then, because when measuring across a flat circle, each round equals two rows, you need to divide this figure by 2. This is the number of rounds that will make up your diameter.

(HAT DIAMETER x # of ROWS in GAUGE)/ 2 = # of ROUNDS in DIAMETER

In my example: (5.5 inches x 2.9 rows)/ 2 = 7.97 of rounds in diameter

 

Step 3: Calculating the Increases

So now you have 2 figures:

the number of stitches that will make up the circumference (59.5)

the number of rounds that will make up the diameter (7.97)

Now, obviously you can't have 0.5 of a stitch or 0.97 of a row.  You'll need to make a judgement on each. Generally speaking, I estimate the rounds to the nearest complete number.  In my example, its obviously 8.

Next, you need to figure out how many stitches to increase in each round, or what number stitches you'll crochet into your first loop and then increase by over the rounds. This is calculated by dividing the stitches in the circumference by the rounds in the diameter.

# of STITCHES in CIRCUMFERENCE/# of ROUNDS in DIAMETER = Stitches to increase per round

In my example: 59.5/ 8 = 7.43 stitches per round.

You'll often come out with an uneven number. This is where you need to make a judgement. You can:

- Leave the remaining stitches out (in my example: I could make 8 rounds of 7 stitches each with a total of 56 stitches, which would change the hat size from 17 inches to 16 inches)

- Add stitches in to make a next full increase round (in my example, I could round it up to 8 stitches over 8 rounds, for a 64 stitch hat circumference, but this would mean about an 18inch hat circumference)

- To get the correct sizing, round down to the nearest number (in my case 7).  Then in an additional round (in my case, round 9) increase evenly by the remaining 'hanging stitches' (in my case 3).

Then you need to work even until the hat height measures your desired size.

 

*****

There are so many variations to this process, which I can not go into in this kind of format.  However, once you get this basic principle, the possibilities are endless, including sizing up and down for writing a pattern.

For other varieties:

- Slouchy hats tend to have longer heights and a diameter that will fit snugly on the wearers head so it doesn't slip down over their eyes.

- Beret styles are larger circles so the diameter of the circle makes up much of the hat height.  Obviously the bottom few rounds need to be decreased to a good snug fit.

- Hats with pointy tops can be made by alternating each increase rows with rows that do not increase stitches at all. This will form a cone. To measure the diameter, just rely on the stitch count

*****

Notes: Though I write about inches, it will work just find if you measure in centimeters. 

Even though this all sounds very complicated, it is actually relatively straight forward to implement once you get the hang of it (she says, with optimism).  However, if it makes no sense to you at all, try drinking a glass of wine, and if that still doesn't work, I accept full responsibility ;)

There is soooo much more I could say about hat design and pattern writing, but I am going to leave it here for now, as this gives a very basic foundation.  I am toying with the idea of putting all of this (and the other important information) in a pdf, but time is limited at the moment.  However, if you have any questions, please ask either in the comments section or on facebook and I will do my best to answer.

How to Design a Hat, Part 1 is here.

Subscribing in a reader or liking Slugs on the Refrigerator on Facebook are great ways to be alterted to when I post part 3.

 

How To Design Your Own Hat (Part 1: The Basic Principles)

 

 

One of the main reasons I started designing my own hats was because I struggled to find crochet patterns that didn't look like those crocheted Barbie toilet paper covers my grandmother had. 

When I first started, it was complete guess work.  I didn't know about even increases or flat circles and crocheted everything in a UK Treble/US Double crochet. Patterns evaded me (and still do to some extent).  I would always lose count of stitches and never knew where the designer intended for me to put my hook. My hats looked more like something out of the hyperbolic reef project, rather than a garment.

About 3 years and countless hats later, I feel relatively confident in my ability to make a hat to fit a head. But even now, I remain baffled by the lack of readily available information on how to design your own. These type of instructions are much more prevelant in the knitting community, Elizabeth Zimmerman being the classic example. It was reading her Knitters Almanac that really taught me how to design. 

To save others the frustration I have gone through I thought it would be useful to lay out my process for designing a very basic beanie style hat.

To keep things simple, I am laying out the posts over a couple of days.  Today, I will just give an overview of the general principles and then tomorrow, we will look a the nuts and bolts of hat design.

Beanies are generally the easiest of hats as it follows a very simple pattern:

- increases are worked over a flat circle to the desired diameter and then,

- the increases stop and the hat height is built up using rounds of the same number of stitches as the last increased row, or "worked even". 

Have I lost you? Let me explain.

Remember geometry class and those endless problems involving pi?  Well, contrary to what I told my math teacher about geometry being useless in 'real life', it actually comes in handy when making a hat.

Very often, you will know (at least roughly) the circumference of your recipients head.  Even if you haven't measured, there are a variety of guides that give you the basic size range for head sizes. Hat sizes are about 1-2 inches smaller than the head size and have heights that correspond to circumference. No matter where you look, they are pretty standard.  My hats are generally sized as follows:

 

Age	Head Size	Hat Size	Hat Height	Flat Circle Diameter
0-6 months	13 - 15in	12 -14  inches	4.5 - 5 inches	4 inches
6-12 months	16 - 19 inches	14 – 18 inches	5.5 inches	4.5 inches
1 – 3 Years	18 - 21 inches	17 – 20 inches	6.5 inches	5.5 inches
4+ years	20 – 22 inches	19 – 21 inches	7.5 inches	6 inches
Women	22 inches	20 inches	8.5 inches	6.5 inches
Men	23 inches	21 inches	9.5 inches	6.75 inches

 

The range of measurements in sizes is usually covered by making a hat to the smallest size in an age range, quite simply because hats stretch, some more than others. Materials like wool are stretchier than cotton and certain stitches stretch more as well.  I like UK Half Treble/US Half Double Crochet for most hats as it is a good balance between creating a nice solid material, with a nice stretch in it.  Longer stitches, such as UK Treble/US Double, and shell stitch have a lot of stretch.  UK Double/US Single crochet is pretty tight, but does create a lovely, even fabric.

But really, the type of stitch you use is largely irrelevant. You need to use that stitch to increase steadily in a flat circle, until its diameter will give you a hat of the correct circumference. How do you know? Well, its that good ol' geometric equation where

Diameter (the distance across the circle) = Circumference (the distance around the circle)/pi

You'll see in the table above that I have calculated the diameters of the flat circles for most hat sizes. However, if you know the head size you are making for, you need to:

- Subtract 1.5 inches from the head circumference to get the hat size

- Divide the hat size by 3.14

The resulting figure is the diameter. Once you get your flat circle measuring something akin to the correct diameter, stop increasing and just crochet in the round until your hat is the right height. You can always use a balloon blown up to the right head size to check your sizing if the recipient isn't readily willing and/or available (also balloons are great for blocking beanies.) 

So the next question is "How do I know how many rounds and how many stitches to work to for my increases?" That, my friends, is a question for another day. 

***Part 2 is available here***