Two of my colleagues are going on maternity leave so I decided to take on a delusional knitting project to gain some skills and gift them a cute thing. With barely two projects under my belt I would be lying if I said I am a strong knitter. But I liked the idea of trying to knit them something anyway. I decided to go for the Albert Pilot Beanie by PetiteKnit.
I still have no idea about yarn weights or gauge, so I visited a local yarn stores for help. The lady in the shop kindly pointed me to some wool that would work for the purpose: Lana Grossa Cool Wool Baby in the shade cornflower blue. I told her it’s my first time trying double pointed needles and she looked a little sceptical.
I thought, how hard can it be? The pattern is only rated a level 2/5. Compared to that, my current project is a 3/5 and that’s been ok so far.
Also, I really wanted to learn double pointed needles as I’d really love to knit socks at some point. A baby hat seemed a good an introduction as any.
After buying and inspecting the pattern, I understood knitting lady’s apprehension. The instructions include just the pattern – no extra little helpful tips or videos or anything. It took me a day and a handful of do-overs to decipher what I needed to do, but I sort-of worked it out in the end.
The pattern is worked from the top down, meaning you start with a very small number of stitches and increase from there.
Key learnings from casting on & completing the first few rounds:
- Casting on to double pointed needles requires a specific technique. I’d recommend searching on YouTube for how to do it right.
- The patterns says you should cast on x stitches. This means x stitches in total, not per needle. Might be obvious for the seasoned knitter but not for me.
- The pattern then instructs you to do a series of stockinette stitches interspersed with yarn overs to increase.
- Yarn over literally means placing the yarn over the needle to create an extra stitch. I suggest searching YouTube for how to yarn over on dpns.
- The pattern says something like, k2 y1, then repeat. At first, I thought it meant knit two stitches, yarn over once, then complete the round with normal stockinette. Wrong! Then I thought it meant knit two stitches, yarn over once, then repeat on the other needles. Closer but still wrong.
My mistake was treating each needle as a separate row. Instead. all four needles should be treated as one round. You need to knit K2- Y1- K2- Y1-K2-Y1 in that order regardless of which needle you are on. You might need to yarn over at the end of the row – at the end of the needle with no other stitches to hold the yarn over in place.
It feels wrong, but that’s the way.
I drew a little diagram to make it easier for my brain to comprehend.
So at the end, after many a struggle, I managed to start my project. Each stitch marker marks the middle yarnover. The ones at the end are hard to mark, so I just had to remember them.
The top of the beanie turned out a bit wonky. It’s super hard to keep track of the needles and which way they’re supposed to turn at the start. Hope to do a neater job next time, but not super bothered by it. It’ll be hidden by the pompom anyway.
The yarnovers also slipped from me a couple of times, so I had to improvise and add more stitches on the next rounds. It created these small gaps. Not sure how to solve that except to just keep an eye on the little bastards next time.
The headband and ear flaps are done in a garter stitch. First time for me doing those too. I messed up my tension a little causing gaps at the beginning of the ear flaps. It’s not super obvious on camera, but you can definitely tell in person.
And it’s done!
There were so many firsts for this project. First time using dpns, first time knitting a beanie, first time knitting with double yarn. And also first time attempting to block my work. My only other (completed) project was an alpaca vest. Maybe it’s because alpaca is so drapey, but I didn’t fit the fit awkward without blocking it, so I skipped it. This beanie however was a little lumpy.
Overall, I’m very excited about double pointed needles. They are the most magical thing. It looks really impressive when you’re sitting with it, and it also feels really cool. I feel using them connects me to history. Imagine the generations of women who have used these exact tools, while living completely different lives.
I went into this project with zero idea about how dpns work, I didn’t even really understand the concept of how you work your way around. There is something satisfying about learning how to do something so new that you can’t even imagine the first step.
I feel a little closer to knitting my first sock, plus this beanie is pretty darn cute.