In the round

About a month ago I wrote of wanting to experiment with knitting a hat in the round.  I know that any hand knitters who are reading this must be saying "Huh??" right about now.  Yes, I understand that lots of hand knitted hats are done in the round. The last two hats I knitted on my double bed knitting machine were not.

Previously, knitting a hat using both beds, but not in the round, allowed me to base the stitch pattern on both knit and purl stitches.  More importantly, it allowed me to rack, that is, move one bed of needles laterally in relation to the other bed of needles, in between rows of knitting.  Imagine multiple crossover stitches in hand knitting as in this scarf by Arlene's World of Lace. (Brought to my attention by Bufordsmom, Ravelry sign-in required.)

You may recall my racked stitch pattern from previous hats.

But this time my challenge was to create a an interesting jersey fabric that could easily be machine knitted in the round. I have not done much knitting or designing of jersey fabric lately. After a little experimenting, I decided to go with a tuck pattern with a few needles left out of action. This could produce a mesh-type fabric, good for a summer hat.

Here are some of my (unblocked) experiments playing with the width of plain jersey (stockinette)
between columns of tuck (knit 3 below) stitches. Click to view enlargement.

Well, it was an interesting creature to knit. I used cam settings I don't think I've ever used before (DX, for any Passap knitters reading this). The ribbing at the start could not be knitted in the round, so as in knitting socks on the Passap (something I have yet to do), stitches had to transferred using a decker comb before the main knitting could begin.

At the end there was just one tiny seam in the rib to stitch up, plus the flower, of course.

Bulk at the top was easy to manage with this design.

I've already completed another in white. More are on the way.