Ok, folks, I can take a hint.  My two Top-Down, No Math hats account for over half the hits I have ever gotten on this site.  So, I will give you more.  Yes!  A new Top-Down, No Math hat, this time aptly named: FourSquare.  It looks like a hot-cross bun, doesn’t it?

Here we go:

Yarn: Same as the others, yarn is whatever you like, about a hat’s worth. In the sample, I used Cascade EcoWool, which is lovely stuff.

Needles: Needles should be appropriate to the yarn.  You’ll need to start either on dpns or a magic loop.  By the end, you’ll either need more/longer dpns, or a circular.

Notes: We’re going to use two different increases.  The first is the same nearly invisible increase we used before.  The second is the same idea, but heading left.  I’m going to point you to this lovely tutorial from the Twist Collective, and use her terminology: RLI and LLI.  (I’m told that link is now dead, but this one should work.)

Ready?  Let’s begin.

CO 8.  Join in the round, being careful not to twist.

Round 1: K all, placing a marker after stitches 1, 3, 5, and 7.

Round 2: [RLI, K2, LLI] 4 times (16 st)

Round 3 and all odd rounds: K

Round 4 and all even rounds: [K to 1 st before st marker, RLI, K2, LLI] 4 times, K to end of round.

So, here’s the weird part: even though you’re working 2 st around each marker, the result looks like a single st going the other direction.  If you want the cross to be bulkier, you can work an extra stitch or two around each st marker (inside the increases).

Keep going until you have the circumference you want, then work plain stockinette until you feel like doing ribbing, have enough for it to curl under, or run out of yarn.

BO loosely.  My favorite trick is to go up a few needle sizes for the bind-off row.

If you like this or any of my other patterns, would you drop me a comment letting me know?  Nice comments make my day. Thanks.