Hat break

I halted all sock progress to make a hat. Not because I was tired of socks, or because I wanted to knit something with larger needles... It's just that I bought a new toy: The Addi Express. I got the King Size version, with 46 stitches.




I knit up the hat really fast, then took it off the machine and finished the crown by hand.  This was tricky and I messed up a bit. Then I picked up  the bottom stitches and made the  ribbed edge. I used the yarn that came with the machine, a wool acrylic blend called Zermatt. Today, with some difficulties, I managed to knit the rest of the yarn into a flat piece, proving that the machine can be used also for flat knitting. The equivalent needle size is about 6 mm.

It's fun, but it's an expensive toy.

Other than the price, my main objection is against the number of stitches.Why did they choose 46 needles? If you  plan on adding any decoration like duplicate stitches or buttons, or even for making crown decreases when knitting a hat, 46 is a really bad number. It is divisible only by 23 and 2. The perfect number would have been 48: divisible by 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 12 and 16.