It's Magic

My friend Macky loaned me the pattern for this hat, which I am making for Warren. It is incredibly simple to do, but how the heck does it work?

I hope some day to understand knitting deeply enough to come up with something like this myself.


You can make the hat any size, but you have to cast on a multiple of four.
On circular or double-pointed needles (DPN) start with a cable cast on, which I demonstrated for the green baby poncho (scroll down). Put a marker on the first sticth after you join.
Work two rows of the dark color as follows
K1, P1, K1, YTF, SL1, YTB repeat
Work two rows of the light color as follows
K1, YTR, SL1, YTB, K1, P1 repeat
YTF means "yarn to the front." YTB means "yarn to the back." SL means "slip."
Basically, what you do is you move the yarn to the front as if you were going to purl the stitch, but instead of purling, you just slip that stitch without knitting it or purling it, onto the right-hand needle (or left if you're a lefty). Then you move the yarn to the back in order to knit the next stitch.
Tip: When you change color you can tell if you're doing it right because you will always purl the stitch that is the same color as the yarn you are using on the first and third rows.