lined hem & brim

Photo tutorial for a non-sew invisible lined hem or brim (or cuff)

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The contrasting lining can be knitted before or after you finish the outer layer of the hat (or cuff or garment).

The picking up is done with the working RS yarn to avoid any colour bumps showing through. That said, on the hat above the picking up was done with the contrasting lining yarn – a thinner yarn (4ply) than the hat yarn (DK) and there is no peeking through.

1. Push all stitches away from needle tips so that stitches sit freely on the circular cable. This gives more room to pick up each stitch.

2.WS: Needle tips are inserted in the bars between stitches. Pick up & knit in these bars. (The arrows point to the next three bars.

3. From WS and with a smaller needle, and using the working yarn from RS (a contrasting yarn is used in photos for visibility), pick up & knit 1 stitch in each bar across the round.

3b. Another view of the picked up stitches (needle folded down).

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4. Knit lining along and from the inside of the hat (garment) to desired length.
For the ZiggurHat in the photo the lining is 3 cm (2 1/4 in). Cut lining yarn.

5. Finish the outer layer. That is, knit to just barely longer than the lining — if it is equal length or shorter, the lining will tend to roll outwards.

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6. Cross the RS working yarn over to WS. With this yarn knit one final round on the lining (with the smaller needle). Above you see the first 4 stitches knitted with the RS yarn (and viewed from the WS of the lining).
This round is worked in order to avoid contrasting purled bumps after binding off.

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7. Weave in loose ends before closing the brim or hem.

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8. Bind off from RS with larger needle and using a 3-needle bind off. Keep an even tension. The two layers will make the bind off quite stretchy, so unless you tend to tightness there is no need for a stretchier bind off technique.

8b. 3-needle Bind Off: Knit 2 stitches together — 1 stitch from each needle.
Do this again. Bind off 1 as usual. *Knit 2 stitches together (1 from each needle), bind off. Repeat from * to end of round.

You may end up with a bit of ugliness at the final stitch. You can prettify this by finding the way the stitch runs and pull in the extra yarn and distribute it across the neighbouring stitches. If that doesn’t look too promising, instead pull it out as far as you can and weave in the extra length before fastening and weaving in the final end.

For the blue hat above (Kaul Toque) and for Callisto Hat (below) the lining stitches are picked up and knitted but then set aside while the hat itself is finished. The lining is knitted last to just shorter than the hat’s outer layer.

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↑  Callisto Hat has a twisted rib lining. It too is closed with a regular knitted 3-needle bind off from the RS.

 

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↑ The lining yarn and the lining circular needle are kept out of the way inside Kaul Toque while the hat is completed. (You can poke the lining needle tips through the lining yarn ball and the crown, and also pull the needles through to the outside to keep things in place).

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↑ The hat brim is folded down (well… up, really!) to be out of the way while the lining is knitted.

•Hats in photos: Simple ZiggurHat & Kaul Toque & Callisto Hat (patterns available individually and in the Hatalogue eBook).

•Yarn in photos: Wollmeise Merino DK — Jeton (brown), q.e.d. (light grey), Wasabi (green), Mörchen (orange), Fritzi Frizzante (blue), Ag47 (dark grey), Silberdistel (dark teal)


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