Saturday 10 January 2015

Easy Knitting: Your Own Beanie

knitting a beanie
Um diesen Beitrag auf Deutsch zu lesen, bitte hier klicken.


It's a new year and it's also January, and in January it usually gets rather cold here in Austria. So, it was high time that me to get into knitting again! I've already knitted my own headband about a year ago, so why not try knitting a beanie now?
I always prefer something easy and uncomplicated, but it still has to look good... Okay, so let's choose a colour... Which one do I not have yet? Grey? Yes, I actually like this colour now and I believe it is in style, too. Well then, off to the shops to choose a nice pack of wool!









What you'll need:
  • wool in your desired colour and thickness 
    • bulky wool = bulky pattern= less knitting = quicker
    • fine wool = fine pattern = more knitting = takes longer
  • a pair of circular knitting needles fitting to your wool (see label of wool for information)
  • needle with a wide eye or a crochet needle for sewing  up the thread
knitting a beanie



Step 1: Trial knitting
Here you want to know how many stitches you'll knit per centimetre with the wool you chose. That way you can calculate how many stitches you'll need to go around your head. In case you already know how many stitches you'll need, you can of course skip this step. But if not, it's a very good way to find out and very important especially if you are a beginner.
It should be sufficient if you knit about 2-3 rows of 5-10 stitches. Once you've then calculated how many stitches you've made per centimetre you'll need to measure your head and calculate the number of stitches needed for the beanie.

knitting a beanie



Step 2: Casting on
If you don't know how to cast on, look at my previous post on knitting your own headband. There I have a couple of youtube-videos linked for you that I found as helpful. When you know how to do it, cast on as many stitches as you calculate before for the size of your head.

knitting a beanie
The circular knitting needle always curls up a little... it gets better once there are more rows knitted...

Step 3: The first row
Now we can really get going! The stitches are cast on, the motivation is here so turn on the music / television and get knitting! For right-handers: The stitch you cast on last is in your right hand, the stitch you cast on first is in you left hand. This first stitch is then being knitted first and will connect the beginning and the end of the row - it's supposed to become a beanie, isn't it ;) My beanie was done knitting only plain stitches. Keeping it simple!

knitting a beanie



Step 4: Knitting, knitting, knitting...
Well, I hope you chose your wool wisely because how long knitting the beanie takes depends not only on the size of your head but also if your chosen wool is fine or bulky. If it's fine like mine you'll need patience because it might take a couple of hours. I didn't finish mine in one go but rather knitted a couple of rows at a time, mainly while watching movies and TV shows.

knitting a beanie



Step 5: Finishing off
Try your beanie on once in a while, to check when it's long enough. If you decided it's big enough, things will get a bit more challenging again. For your beanie to become round at the top you'll need to "knit together" a couple of stitches time after time until you end up with only four stitches.

Here's how you do it:
  • start at the beginning of your piece (look for the thread in the first row)
  • knit 5 stitches as usual and then knit 2 stitches together at the same time
    • repeat until the end of the row
  • on the next row knit 4 stitches separately and then 2 stitches together again
    • repeat until the end of the row
  • continue with this pattern row by row:
    • next 3 separate, 2 together
    • 2 separate, 2 together
    • 1 separate, 2 together
  • then, depending on how many stitches you started with, knit 2 stitches together until you only have 3-4 stitches left
  • cut off the thread at about 30cm
  • take the needle or crochet needle and pull the thread through the last stitches and then through to the inner side of the beanie
knitting a beanie



Step 6: Weaving in ends
If you stuck to one pack of wool and didn't change colours you should only have 2 threads that need to be sewn up: the one from the first row and the on from the top. As always, Youtube is a good source of instructional videos: weaving in ends.

DONE!

Do you also like to knit while watching TV? Or do you prefer just listening to music? Any music suggestions especially for knitting? :) Or do you like to do something else? Let me know in the comments below!

Happy knitting!
C

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