The big beanie

My mother was knitting the twisted rib beanie from Knit Issue 6, for my brother-in-law, but when she finished, it was too small. How annoying. When we looked back at the pattern to see what could be the problem, we found that the pattern stated that finished measurement was 40cm in circumference, and this was exactly the measurement my mum had ended with. Now beanies are worn stretched, and single rib, or even twisted rib are stretchy stitches, but as standard male hat sizes are from 56-63 cm, this is asking the beanie to stretch around 50%. This is a big ask, a bigger beanie was clearly required.
Increasing the size involved re writing the pattern for a cast on of 84 stitches, and a nice even set of decreases at the top. It was also re-written to allow circular knitting - I much prefer pulling through a single stitch at the end of a beanie to stitching up the back.

Here is the not quite-Knit 6 bigger beanie.



It did take more yarn than orginial pattern - 2 and 1/2 balls of Jo Sharp Silkroad Ultra, in colour 722 cement.



The new pattern is available free in the shop with the purchase of the yarn required.

Fortunately, my mum ravelled her too small beanie, and knit it up again in the new pattern, so I get to keep this one. This also means that we know that the pattern takes only one x 100g skein of Alsan Trends Guanaco.

It is warming up here, but this beanie will be just the thing for a September school holiday camping trip. It gets cold at night when you travel inland.
It is actually lucky that there is half a ball left over, as now my husband wants a beanie for this camping trip, and I can make him a nice striped one.