Hi all -

So I am going to try to start designing my own hat patterns. The question I have is how do you decide where to put the hat decreases. I know when you should start to decrease, but how do you know where to put them. I could probably just play with it and figure it out myself, but wanted to try to get some input first.

Thanks,

Jess

:knitting:

A lot of the "Where" is going to depend on what stitch(es) you are using..and what is necesaary to preserve the stitch - or not, depneding on the look you want.

If it's just stockinette, you would 'knit X sts, k2tog around, and X plus the 2 that are knit tog should be a multiple of the whole stitch count. So it's good to have 88 or 96 or 72 sts, or even 77 sts, that can be divisible by 2 numbers. For 2x2 ribbing, it's less intrusive on the rib pattern to p2tog in the p sts first, which takes it down to k2, p1, then do the k2tog, p1 decs. For other stitch patterns, you'd use some variation or combination of those two patterns to keep the st pattern going as long as possible, if that matters.