ink and yarn
If you don't push the tuck buttons, you don't get tuck stitch no matter what needles you select.
And finally, A HAT.
It might fit a child but still, I have proven my concept!
Yet another attempt at machine-knitting this hat (and this time you can see the glorious teal of the knitting machine). I made the plain part of the ribbing longer so it could be folded up. I figured out how to get the decreases to flow nicely from the ribbing pattern. I... ran out of yarn. Anyway here it is still hanging from the needles just after the decreases, which I totally fudged because, again, running out of yarn.
It's such a cool stitch pattern! I want to use it for everything. It uses up so much yarn though... maybe this will be a baby hat.
I remembered to push the buttons this time! ...but I'm not sure I like how the fabric poufs out after the switch from plain ribbing. I'm going to try again with the mistake-y plain rib from the first attempt as the brim ribbing, and then the tuck rib for the body of the hat.
I'm working on recreating a hat that I saw in a picture. I was able to find hand-knitting instructions for the cables, but the technique for shifting stitches around on the machine isn't quite the same as doing it by hand. It's easier than I thought it would be, actually :)
This sample is knit at a tension that is too loose for the yarn, but I'm pleased to have figured out how to do the transfers.
Next up, figuring out how to do the decreases for the crown…
Some hand-knitting techniques translate easily to the machine, but others... not so much. I've been trying different methods for hat decreases to see which is easiest and still looks good. Details & side views at the blog:
https://www.knittingpirate.com/2026/04/12/in-which-the-pirate-learns-new-hat-decreases/
Continuing with my punchcard experiments... this wolf pattern was published in a knitting magazine over 20 years ago. But howling wolves never go out of style, right?
https://www.knittingpirate.com/2026/03/23/in-which-the-pirate-howls/
After some trial and error, I got the tags to print properly. Now I just have to pop them out and tie them on.
I found the stitch pattern for these cats on Pinterest, then punched my own card for it and knit a hat. Details on the blog: https://www.knittingpirate.com/2026/03/24/in-which-the-pirate-has-cats/
Mäh W.I think I found me another rabbit hole (#machineKnitting): "[Make Magazine] Learn The Lingo: Machine Knitting" by @calebkraft
https://makezine.com/article/craft/yarncraft/learn-lingo-machine-knitting/
