DIY Knitted Headband – in 2 days!

For my 2nd attempt at knitting, this worked out really well! I finally got some knitting needles from the op shop the other day, and some yarn. I googled ‘how to knit’, and used some simple instructions to learn the basic technique (i.e. my 1st serious attempt at knitting). Something I’d been wanting for a while was a thick headband to slip over my head and keep my hair out of my face. This does an awesome job.

I’m not sure the type or grade of yarn (label was missing), but it was a fairly small ball of wool and multicoloured. I used 3mm needles for this, which gave it a small, tight weave. I started by casting on a row of 20, but then it gradually blew out to 30 because I accidently picked up some stitches over time. When I figured out what had happened (probably about 20 rows in), I was careful to stay on 30 for the rest of the time. Then I realised that I’d run into a problem when it came to attaching the two ends together, being two different widths. So toward the end, to taper it back down to 20, I started picking up 2 loops here and there for a few consecutive rows until I got to 20, and then did approx 20 rows of 20. I then used a sewing needle and a length of same-coloured yarn to connect the loops attached to the knitting needle to the loops on the other end. Anyway, hard to explain, but the result is something shaped vaguely like this:

Imagine the narrowest ends connected together so it’s a circle. I just kept knitting until the length of what I had fit around my head. It worked out well in the end. The bit that sits under my hair is less wide (20), and the bit over the top of my head is the widest part (30). I did drop a few stitches here and there, and will have to get a crochet hook and learn how to pick them up again in future projects. For this project I just used some yarn & a thick sewing needle and stitched over any holy bits. Most of those errors are under my head though as I made most of the mistakes early on. Adds character I figure 🙂

The result is surprisingly stretchy and fits over my head perfectly.

Sorry for my poor attempt at knitting lingo! Pretty chuffed that it actually worked though and I made something really practical from a small ball of yarn in around 2 days (max 6 hours an evening in knitting, and a little bit in the morning and afternoon if I had time). Worth a go if you’re a fellow beginner knitter and want an easy project to start off with.