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Knitting Projects for Beginners
Headbands - Toques - Scarves
Once you've mastered the basics in Knitorial for Beginners I'm sure you will be looking to see what you can make besides a scarf! So in this post I have laid out simple projects with attached video links for you to expand your knitting horizons in the same easy to follow order that I did! You can find any advice on needle size or yarn width at Knitting Tips.
1. Basic Headband
You will need...
2 straight knitting needles50 m of yarn
1 darning needle
Once you have knit a scarf, it naturally followed, at least for me that is, that I would make a headband with my leftover wool. To start, you simply need to follow the same cast on process as the scarf in steps 2-8, except only cast on 12 stitches this time. Then you are going to knit until the headband can fit around your head, approximately 18 inches. It will stretch so do not make it loose! When you have knit the length of the headband, bind off your stitches like you did in the scarf steps 23-26. Then you are going to stitch the ends of your headband together so that you have a closed loop of headband (as in step 27).
If you want to jazz it up a bit, you could consider winding some leftover wool around one area of the headband so that it is pinched at the front like I have!
Additionally, if you wish to achieve the look of the white headband with horizontal rows instead of vertical rows, you will switch every row between knitting one whole row, then "purling" one whole row. I explain purling in the next project.
2. Twisted Headband with Ribbing
You will need...
2 straight knitting needles1 double-pointed needle
50 m of yarn
1 darning needle
This headband gets a little bit complicated, where you will need to learn a second stitch called "purling". Don't worry, the only difference here is that yarn is moved to the front of the knitting, then your right needle will slide through the front of the loop on your left needle when you make a stitch.
Thanks to Christine at iKnits, there is a video to follow along for this pattern! You will find the video below. And don't worry about the finger cast on method that she shows, you can use the same method you learned for the scarf. However, if you are feeling adventurous it is a skill that, once you master, makes casting on go a lot faster. I learned this by simply repeatedly rewinding the beginning of the video below where it is shown.
You will start by casting on 14 stitches as you normally would, and then the video will start by showing you how to purl as you alternate between knit 2 and purl 2 for the width of the headband.
Then you will learn how to make a twist in the headband (do not try to simply knit a basic headband like the one above and then twist it before you sew it together because it will be bulky and messy looking). This requires you to use a double-pointed needle but this is easy to follow in the video. Once you have learned this skill, it will make learning more complicated stitches like the "cable-knit" very easy.
3. Beginner Toque
You will need...
1 set magic loop knitting needles, size 8 or 91 double-pointed needle
100 m of medium width yarn
1 darning needle
To learn how to do this, I actually watched a video on how to knit a stocking and followed the beginning cuff of the stocking and how to change colours, except only casting on 48 stitches. If you are using any larger sized needles make sure to reduce your stitch count, either by 4 or 8 since you will be ribbing the cuff so it needs to be reduced by an even amount so that the knit 2 purl 2 pattern continues in the round.
The knitting that I followed for this hat starts around 0:50.
Once you've switched colours, you are going to simply knit around the hat until it is 8 inches long. At this point you're going to start decreasing the stitch count in order to shape the hat. But before you do so, in the last row that you knit, place a marker (I just use thin rings for this, you will see a marker in the video below) at the stitch where your hat was started or directly up from where the tail of your yarn is hanging. Then knit the next 12 stitches and place another marker. Place another marker after the next 12 stitches and after the following 12 stitches. Then knit your last 12 stitches and you will be back at the first marker. Make sure to remember which one is your starting marker for when to switch between knit and decrease rows! (If you found that 48 stitches was too large for your hat, you just have to divide your stitches by 4 for this step. For instance 44 stitches, you would place a marker every 11 stitches). So, to do your decreasing, you are going to learn how to "knit two together". To learn this, skip ahead to 7:03 in the following video.
To begin your decrease, you will knit 2 together after every marker, keeping the markers in your knitting. Then you will knit a regular row of knitting after your decrease row. Alternate between a decrease row and a regular knit row until there are not enough stitches to continue knitting in the loop (around 10 stitches). At this point, you are not going to bind off your stitches as you normally would, but rather you will just cut your yarn so that there is about 1 ft extra still attached. Now, you are going to pull the yarn through the stitch loops that are still on your needles (I used a crochet hook to help with this). Once you have them all hooked, turn your toque inside out, go back to where you started feeding the yarn through and hanging on to thing section pull the yarn tight to close up the top of the hand. The reason I had you find the section of yarn where you started feeding it through is so that now you have somewhere to tie the end of your yarn to in order to secure and finish off the hat! So tie your knot and trim the rest of the yarn and either leave the end or weave it through some inside stitches so that it looks clean.
I topped my hat with a pom pom, mostly because I was making a Santa hat, but also because toques are always more fun with a pom pom. So to learn how to make one see How to Make a Pom Pom.Once you've made your pom pom, with the two ends of yarn that are left dangling from the center of it, you are going to thread each through the middle of your bind off row that closed your hat, with one string on either side of that row. Then reaching into the inside of your hat, simply tie those to strings together in a knot and cut the ends and your pom pom will be secure!
You may also want to weave the end of your wool back into the cuff of the hat as in step 27 of the scarf tutorial for an extra precaution and to hide the end of the wool.
4. Simple Cable-Knit Headband
You will need...
2 straight knitting needles1 double-pointed needle
50 m of yarn
1 darning needle
For this headband, you are going to cast on 20 stitches.
In your first row, you will knit 4, purl 12, and then knit the last 4.
In the next row, as you will be flipping your knitting as your needles switch hands, you will have to reverse the pattern, therefore in row 2 you will purl 4, knit 12, and purl the last 4.
Repeat this pattern until you have completed 10 rows.
On the 11th row, you will cable-knit. You can see this technique explained in the following video at 3:50, however you will be following the pattern listed below.
For your cable row, you will purl 4, slide the next 6 knit stitches onto your double-pointed needle, hold them in the back, continue to knit across the next 6 stitches, knit the double-pointed needle stitches back onto your right needle and then purl the last 4 stitches.
At this point you will repeat the first 2-10 rows of the pattern and then on the 21st row, you will cable-knit again.
Repeat this process until your headband reaches around your head, approximately 18 inches. Then, just like in project 1, the Basic Headband, you are going to bind off your stitches and then stitch the ends of your headband together so that you have a closed loop of headband (as in step 27).
Hope you enjoy your first knitting projects!