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During the winter break of my freshman year in college I was (f)unemployed, which, to an eighteen year old who just had their first real taste of college classes, was a welcome change. I spent most of my days sitting around my parent’s house sleeping until noon and staying up until 4 am. I swore it was because for some weird reason I just couldn’t get to bed any earlier, but I swore it wasn’t because I was sleeping until noon every day or anything. Eventually the novelty of doing nothing wore off and I started trying to find something to keep myself occupied.

Eventually, some vague memory of my sister knitting during her winter break a few years back inspired me to teach myself how to knit. I’d already taught myself how to crochet in high school and I was terrible at it, and to be honest, I wasn’t much better at knitting at first.

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But after eight years of intermittent knitting I’ve become somewhat of an addict in recent years. Last year alone I knit almost 17 hats for every member of my immediate family. Needless to say, knitting has become my go-to for gifts. That’s where this pattern comes from –a request from my co-worker Renee which turned into her Christmas present…that she got two days ago. (I never said I was a particularly fast knitter.)

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This is a super quick pattern that can be knit up in a few hours. By its nature the pattern is super stretchy so it can stretch a fair amount.  You can knit on double pointed needles or using the magic loop method!

Here’s what you’ll need:

150 m Red Heart Soft Baby Steps Yarn in “Elephant”

US 8/5mm Double Pointed Needles

Key:

K – Knit

P- Purl

CxF – Cable the stitches to the front

Cast on 48 stitches onto the double pointed needles. Divide the stitches up between the three needles so that there are sixteen stitches on each needle. Join the needles in the round.

Row 1: K2, P2, repeat until the end of the row.

Rows 2-6: Repeat row 1

Row 7: P2, K2, P2, K4, P2, K2, P2

Row 8: P2, C2F, P2, K4, P2, C2F, P2

Row 9: P2, K2, P2, K4, P2, K2, P2

Row 10: P2, C2F, P2, C4F, P2, C2F

Repeat Rows 7-10 4 times

Row 26: K2, P2, repeat until end of the row

Rows 27-31: Repeat row 26

Row 32: Bind off in pattern