I just turned 21 on Tuesday and one of my favorite birthday presents (besides my older brother taking me to his favorite pub) was the Son of Stitch n' Bitch book, and I can't wait to try double knitting

I want to use double-knitting to re-start a partial intarsia hat I frogged this morning. After I made several sample swatches and two fairly plain hats, I finally got the hang of basic intarsia. My first "nice and neat" intarsia hat was black and had the old-school Batman oval logo on the front for my friend Derek, a huge Batty fan. As I gave it to him, he mentioned that he never has enough sturdy winter hats.

I told Derek I would make him a few more, and for the first one I came up with an intarsia pattern of my own design. The shape is a basic knit-all-around hat with some K2-P1 ribbing at the beginning, plus the pattern of course. THIS IS THE HAT I FROGGED THIS MORNING AS MENTIONED ABOVE. Over 120 stitches, the entire pattern repeats twice,  once in the front and once in back. My biggest problem is that for the first 3 rounds or so, I only have maybe 3-5 stitches stretching out over the entire round! I figure double knitting it instead will help hide these annoyingly long floats and maybe not itch Derek in the head so much.

So my question is, would I--for the double knitting style--cast on 60, 120, or 240? Once I figure that much out, I can always adjust my pattern as necessary.

I'm pretty sure I figured out why my double-knit hat wasn't shrinking enough. I ended up frogging the 4 rounds I did have of the skulls hat for Max and am instead modifying my pattern according to the "Celtic Beanie" from "Son of Stitch n Bitch." It seems to be behaving much more nicely now. We shall wait and see if this is it!

Double knitting has been frustrating for me so far, but I have learned not to get overly anxious and angry, because knitting will always be a learning process My roommate Megan and I now never go a single night where we don't at least knit a bit on something. I am still stuck in the Land of Hats Galore, but I now have the hang of it and knitting hats has gone from consuming all my concentration to relaxing.

I will finally get to see Derek today after class and I am bringing him a solid green wool winter hat in seed stitch (I've updated my photos). Also, I can get some pictures of the Batman hat up on here.