I finished the hat to match the Chevron scarf during our snowstorm. I washed and blocked both the scarf and the hat. Since the hat is supposed to be a tam — I dried it over a large round platter:
However — once dried, the tam was too loose and too big!. So I dunked it in some water and threw it in the dryer — it’s made of superwash sock yarn. And I ended up with:
Which — when placed on the head, looks like a basic beanie hat with two-color chevron stripes. Not what I envisioned — but still a nice result. Now I need to wrap the scarf and hat and get it mailed off.
I have read several Facebook posts and Ravelry forums where new knitters are asking about how to knit a basic hat. There are many basic beanie style hat patterns available for free on Ravelry, including one of mine: Basic Beanie Hat.
But the truth is that a basic beanie hat is fairly easy to knit without any pattern if you are familiar with its structure and know your gauge for the yarn you want to use for the hat. So this post is about the basic structure of a beanie, knit in the round.
Now, a beanie can be knit top down or bottom up, but if you look at most patterns, they are written with a bottom-up construction and this will be the approach I will follow here. There are three parts to a basic beanie: The brim, the body, and the crown. The brim of a beanie is usually done in either 1×1 ribbing (k1,p1) or 2×2 ribbing (k2,p2). The length of the brim can be relatively short – and intended to not be folded, or it can be longer so that it will be worn with the brim folded.
The body of a beanie is the part of the hat that covers the head from just above the ears to where the crown is formed. The length of the body varies according to the size of the hat, with children’s hats being shorter than an adults’ and Men’s hats are usually longer than Women’s. For a basic beanie this length is approximately the length from the top of the head to the bottom of the earlobe or half the length of measuring from the bottom of one earlobe to the other up over the top of the head.
The crown of a beanie is the area that covers the top of the head and is shaped by making decreases to form a circle that is closed at the very top.
To begin knitting the basic beanie you need to do a little math. You need to know what circumference you want it to be. If you have the measurement of the circumference of the head of person you want to fit, you can use that. If you don’t know the circumference, then you can use a standard size chart for the measurements. See the chart below. For a women’s head, I usually use a circumference of 21 – 22 inches as a starting point.
Knitted beanies are made with negative ease. Now what do I mean by that? Negative ease means that the knitted hat will be smaller than the actual circumference and I usually factor in about 10% negative ease for my beanies. This gives the hat a good fit and it hugs the wearer’s head and stays in place. Using an example of a 21 inch circumference, the knitted circumference with 10% negative ease is 19 inches. (10% of 21 = 2.1; 21-2 = 19 or if you prefer: 21 x 0.9 = 19)
You are now ready to determine how many stitches to cast on to start the brim of the beanie. For this you will need your stitch gauge in stitches per inch (spi). I usually have a gauge of 5 spi with worsted weight yarn, so in this example, I multiply 19 inches by 5 sts which gives me 95 sts. However, if I am doing 1×1 ribbing, I need an even number of stitches, so I can either round down to 94 or round up to 96 sts. If I do 2×2 ribbing, I need an even number of stitches, but the number also has to be divisible by 4. In this example, 96 is divisible by 4, so I would start with 96.
For a Women’s beanie, I usually like to knit the ribbing to a length of approximately 2 inches and then start the body. For a basic beanie, I knit the body in stockinette stitch. The body area is where you can add various textured stitch patterns or knit stripes using different colors of yarn. But the very basic beanie is knit in stockinette stitch.
The length of the hat is determined by measuring the length of the wearer’s head from the lower earlobe to the top of the crown. Another way is to measure the head from the bottom of one earlobe over the top of the head to the bottom of the other earlobe and then divide that number by 2. For a women’s hat, I usually use a length of 10.5 to 11 inches, for a men’s hat I use 11 to 11.5 inches. See the standard size chart above for further information. The crown of the hat is approximately 1/3 of the total length of the hat. So, once the ribbing is done, you knit the body to the desired length where the crown shaping starts (measured from the cast on edge). In my example of a women’s hat with a total length of 11 inches, I would knit to a length of 7.5inches. The remaining length of the hat is where the crown is shaped using decreases.
My next post covers things you need to consider to knit the crown of the beanie.
I have completed the first three swatches for the TKGA Master Knitter Level I program. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I discovered an issue with tension that I did not realize I had. And over the last few weeks, I have done quite a bit of reading about tension and an equal amount of knitting, reknitting, and being much more aware of HOW I knit. This is one of the purposes of the Master Knitter program — it makes you think about your craft and helps you identify the bad habits you have developed over time.
I have decided to use this blog as I way for me to document the lessons learned as I proceed through the Master Knitter Level I program. Hopefully, others will find my notes and comments helpful and will also learn from them. So, here is the first of my “lessons learned”:
Swatch #1 — 2 X 2 Ribbing & Garter Stitch Garter stitch (knit all rows) was fairly easy for me — the key is to maintain an even tension throughout knitting the rows.
Tension can be a real issue with 2 X 2 Ribbing, because most knitters tend to purl more loosely than they knit. [I do]. The result of this tendency is that your ribs are formed of uneven stitches and appear “wonky”. My first attempt at this swatch was definitely “wonky”. After much researching, knitting and reknitting, I determined that I was really out of practice purling because I had been knitting projects mostly “in the round” and this was part of my problem. So, I spent some time just purling and working on my tension — trying to get it more consistent. I eventually managed to obtain a fairly even tension with my ribs. From my reading, I think that the unevenness on the edges is normal and should be satisfactory.
Swatch # 2: 1 X 1 Ribbing and Stockinette Stitch Tension was also an issue for me with the 1 X 1 Ribbing. With this ribbing, I found that my looser purl stitches really impacted the shape of the ribs. Again, I found that I really needed to practice purling and focus on keeping my tension even when doing the ribbing.
For the Stockinette Stitch, I was able to obtain the even fabric required — but only after I had worked on my purling. The evenness isn’t as noticeable on the right side — you need to look at the wrong side of the fabric and make certain that there isn’t a distinct difference in your rows between the knit rows and the purl rows. Along the way, I discovered that I knit fairly loosely and I had to go down one needle size to achieve a decent fabric.
If you are trying to correct uneven tension when ribbing, here are a couple of ways to do so:
1) Just try knitting with an even tension; 2) Give your yarn and extra tug when moving it to the front of the needle and before purling; 3) Try wrapping your yarn under your needle when purling — note, this makes the stitches sit on the needle with the back loop leaning forward — to avoid twisting the stitch you must knit through the back loop rather than the front when knitting; 4) Try purling using the Norwegian Purl method [link to video here].
Swatch # 3: Seed Stitch
Swatch # 3 was a sample of Seed Stitch — which is K1, P1 across the row over an even number of stitches. The goal here is to produce a nice even fabric with no visible holes between the knit and purl stitches. This is another tension challenge. It took me three swatches to produce the swatch shown. I finally came to the conclusion that I was over-doing the tension, basically trying too hard — and once I relaxed a bit on this, I got a better result.
In summary, here’s what worked for me: 1) After practicing, I needed to relax a bit — I got to the point that I was pulling my purl stitches so tightly that I made my knitting even less consistent. 2) Remembering to do that little extra tug when putting the yarn in front to purl. 3) For the edges — giving the yarn an extra tug when knitting off the last stitch on the row, followed by giving an extra tug after knitting the first two stitches on the next row. (more…)
Knitting Needles sizes are fairly straightforward in the sizes that one uses for DK, worsted weight and bulky yarns. (Size US 4 and up). But it is a much different story when it comes to small diameter needles used to knit fingering, lace and other finer weight yarns. This can be very confusing – I just discovered that there is a significant variation in the sizing labels for some of these needles.
Let’s start with the standard “US” sizing – which uses a numerical designation for knitting needles, from “0000” up to 35 – with the needle diameter increasing as the numerical designation increases. Seems like a fairly straightforward system – until you run across US size 1 & 2 needles that are different diameters. If you never use a knitting needle smaller than US size 4 (which has a diameter of 3.5 mm), this will not be a problem for you. IF, however, you get into knitting socks and lace using much smaller diameter needles – it may cause you to pull out your hair.
Fortunately, most knitting needles sold today also come with their diameter size stated as well as their US size. What I have currently in my assortment of circular knitting needles are as follows: US Size 0 (2.00 mm); US Size 1 (2.25 mm), US Size 1 (2.50 mm), US Size 2 (2.75 mm), US Size 2 (3.00 mm). These needles have all been purchased in the last 10 years. I have seen patterns referencing size 1.5 needles, so I am guessing that the size 2 (2.75 mm) needle may also be a 1.5, but it’s difficult to tell for certain. Just a word of caution to those using patterns calling for these US sizes of needles – make certain your metric diameter matches the pattern (if it’s stated) and BE SURE to check your gauge!
Point to remember: Gauge is the measurement of the number of stitches per inch you get with a particular needle – this is more important than using the size of needle stated in a pattern. Always do a swatch for gauge!
