Beanie
A hat but different.
Inspired by Cole’s (machine knit) orange beanie, I wanted to make a hat that had a folded cuff without ribbing and was a bit slouchy. (quality) Men’s knitting patterns are surprisingly difficult to come by so I was excited to find this pattern on the Nimble Needles blog. In a finer yarn with smaller needles, the ribbing effect gives a nice fitted look that (I think) is a bit more masculine than the simple hat.
Project Info:
Pattern: Easy Men’s Beanie, Mütze
Yarn: Facets by Loops & Threads, storm colorway, 100% acrylic, medium weight [Same as Simple Hat]
Needles: US 6 circular and DPNs
Misc: learning to read
The big challenge for this hat is that it’s all ribbing. So a full hat of “knit…purl…knit…purl”
The benefit to this was that I got really good at reading stitches - knowing how each particular stitch looks in contrast to the other. So I could zone out a bit, without my chanting to keep track of which stitch I’m on, and just see which stitch should come next. And it also helped to get a rhythm down with switching the yarn from front to back when going from knit to purl.
If you can see the loop (or as I call it now, collar) that’s a purl
The hat is knit with 1x1 ribbing from the cuff up. The length of the hat allows for about a 3 inch folded brim, but can be worn unfolded for a more slouchy look. Although the pattern begged for the knitter to do a gauge swatch, I estimated the number of stitches I needed from the fit of the Simple Hat, accounting for the fact that hat was way too big, that I was using smaller needles, and that the ribbing would allow for some stretch.
I ended up casting on 120 stitches and took the liberty to ignore both the instructions on doing a cast on with both knit and purl stitches as well as using DPNs throughout – I just used circular needles until about the fourth round of decreases. Speaking of, the decreases are quite neat because the pattern accounts for the purled stitches to the k2tog stitches are quite seamless with the rest of the pattern. Thankfully, they give a guide to how to adjust the decreases depending on the number of stitches cast on.
“If you cast on more stitches (or less), then it’s easy to adjust the decreases. What I did is basically decrease the purl stitches across 6 rows first, and then create a nice round tip with evenly spaced decreases. You can follow these instructions more or less to the word, as long as you cast on multiples of 6 more (or less) stitches.”
The resulting hat is a good kind of slouchy and fits well with the brim folded up.
dog-friendly knits