Headband season

It’s fall. Cold ears season approaches. We’ve had mornings near forty degrees, so cold ears season may already be upon us. A good time to think about headbands.

dryad2

This one is Katya Frankel’s Dryad Headband, knit here in Madelinetosh Tosh Sport on size 3 needles. Dryad needed only 81 yards of yarn. Despite the easy-knit look, I found it difficult to manage the increases at the midpoint of the first section. That neat, pretty line of stitches cutting through the center almost got the better of me. Somehow the double decrease at that midpoint, which is supposed to start one stitch before a marked stitch, kept slyly moving around on me. A wiggly midpoint horizontal would not have looked cool.

But I mastered it:

dryad

Dryad is a pattern originally included in Interweave Knits, Accessories 2011 magazine. It’s available for download on Frankel’s website and on Ravelry.

This one is another critter altogether. No minimalism here.

headband

This is Bonnie Dean’s Arielle, a pattern available for download on Ravelry that I knit while it was still in its freebie stage. I had some leftover Super Bulky Cascade Lana Grande from a blanket project and this looked like it would fit the bill. And it sort of did. It’s designed for a loop closure. My gauge was off a tad, and a tad was all it took. I added a toggle style button and fasten it by poking the button through the fabric. Not ideal. But it works. Size 13 needles. Finished in the time it took my cup of coffee to cool.

This next headband is a rarity: a pattern I figured out (sort of) on my own. I’m working on a major blanket project designed by Martin Storey for Rowan. Rowan ran a mystery knit-a-long over the summer tied to their Pure Wool yarn. I was not ready to commit to such a major project until I saw the completed pattern and knew I liked it. Here it is, by the way. It’s beautiful! This is the 7th square (of 8): French Plait.

square7

That’s just a tease. Eventually the finished blanket will put in an appearance here. But, meanwhile, on the subject of headbands, a young neighbor of mine asked if I could knit her one. She is definitely the knitworthy type. She and I looked at dozens of headbands on Ravelry and none of them were quite what she was looking for. She wanted it fairly narrow. And she wanted cables. But, as I understood it, she wanted neat well-behaved cables rather than messy ones.

Storey’s square features three 8-stitch cables. I cast on 16 stitches, on size 8 needles, and knit the first four and the last four stitches. In the middle, I worked Storey’s simple cable.

Joley's-headband

I knit a 16 inch strip and then sewed the ends together. A provisional cast-on would have been even better, but I didn’t think of it.

It was quite the hit with my 12-year old neighbor. I’m calling it Joley’s headband. I knit mine in a discontinued Classic Elite yarn, Tapestry, a 75% wool, 25% mohair worsted. Any worsted weight will do.