Evolution Beanie

Success! 

I've been knitting for about a year and half and I'm a year in to my career as a fashion designer. That has given me both new skills and a chance to hone my craft toward a couple of iconic items I want and use quite a bit. In this case it's a slightly modernized version of the voyageur caps of my childhood. The most recent evolution of both my knitting and development of that voyageur update came together about six months ago when on a whim I went to a Wes Anderson double feature and decided to knit a red hat while watching Life Aquatic. I got both my update and a Jacque Cousteau worthy red hat.

"Then this guy was all, Not the face!"

This red one was the first really great hat I knit and now with half a dozen more under my belt I think I'm getting it down. It takes a lot longer than my earlier hats because I'm now using only worsted weight wool, meaning around 5200 stitches per hat, but that just seems to be the sweet spot.

A single skein of worsted weight wool usually makes one hat. Cast on 96 stitches using 16" number 8 circular needles. Knit about 9" for the body, then 2" of ribbing before binding off. Then simply gather and stitch the top closed. Nothing to it. A great hat even first time knitters can make.

What I've learned about knitting

Mobius scarf

So, I've been knitting for a few months now and while it isn't compelling to have a conversation about yet, it is somewhat compelling to do once you start. Likely it's simply lingering "guyness" that prevents me from striking up knitting chatter.

Thus far I have learned that it's a pleasant activity that both takes practice and rewards it. The learning curve isn't steep but as noted before it can seem so at first. I've knitted a scarf and simple hat for my toddler daughter and a sort of hood/scarf for myself. After being shown the ultra basics at the knit shop in something like five minutes, I've been able to sort out rib stitching, purling and binding off on my own. I've also seen that while there are a multitude of variations they all essentially stem from those same basic knit and purl stitches.

It's become evident that knitting is very useful and I'd say in terms of DIY, self sufficiency, prepping and even survival, there is no good reason to not know how to at least make a scarf, something simple that can easily be turned into almost any other item with simple blanket or whip stitching. If you are blessed or cursed with a job that has a lot of wait time, maybe security or rendering images, something that requires a person to sit and be present and awake but not actively engaged in much for even a half hour at a time, you might consider using that down time to hand make things you need, can trade for things you want or need, or to stretch those gifting dollars around the holidays. Though, knitting things like blankets and sweaters is not cost effective unless you happen to have a ready supply of wool or yarn, most of us don't and won't in the foreseeable future.

Bottom line, it's no worse a time suck than video games and the usefulness of the end product goes a long way to easing the guilt of what would otherwise be lost or idle time.