Grey Knitted Beanie: Pattern Problems, Mistakes, and Starting Over

Hi everyone! In December 2022, I wanted to knit myself a new beanie. I had a knitting pattern that I wanted to use, but it required wet blocking to make it to be the right dimensions. I didn’t want to wet block the beanie (I wanted the beanie to be machine washable) so I decided to modify the knitting pattern to knit up to be the right size without wet blocking.

When I modified the pattern, I didn’t know how large the circumference of the hat should be. I also debated if I wanted to make the beanie larger than I believed I would need it to be. After thinking about it for a few days, I decided to knit the beanie pattern larger than I believed it should be. After that, I would know if I knitted the beanie too large or too small.

After knitting the ribbing and some of the body of the beanie, it looked like this…

As I suspected, I made the beanie too big. In fact, it is over 40 stitches larger than what I needed it to be! After knitting as far as I did in the photograph, I wondered if I should take it undo the stitches and knit the beanie smaller or continue knitting it both as a test and as a gift for a friend of mine. After considering the quality of the stitches (Not all of them were at the level I expected them to be) and my friend’s head,(Which is bigger than mine yet smaller than the beanie!) I decided to undo the beanie and start from stretch.

Aside from fixing the sizing, I also don’t like how small the beanie’s body pattern looks like. It is smaller than what the finished beanie looks like, but the finished beanie is wet blocked. Since I’m not wet blocking, the pattern will be much smaller than it should be. I like the way the pattern looks on the beanie, but I my attention is fixed on the way the beanie looked like in the pattern. Because of this, I will be enlarging the size of the pattern on the next beanie.

Even though I have a lot to do fix this beanie, there is something that didn’t go wrong with this beanie: The yarn! I really, really, really love the yarn I choose to knit the beanie with! It’s Lion Brand’s 24/7 cotton yarn in the color Silver. It’s very pretty and is really nice. After undoing the knitting I did, it didn’t fray very much and took the re knitting I did with it very well. It’s a 100% cotton yarn that is both machine washable and dry able. I highly recommend this yarn!

Well, that’s all for now! Thank you for reading!