Interim Knitting

The Engineer has been watching me as I've learned to knit and I've been asking him what I could knit for him. He doesn't wear knit hats except for an ancient, raggedy, pale blue doubleknit. My Mom knit both the Engineer and the Twin hats for skiing last year and neither hat has ever seen the light of day.

The Engineer never wears a scarf or mittens.

My Mom also made him a beautiful fisherman knit sweater a few years ago which has lived at the bottom of a drawer since he received it.

Now I'm not implying that I could even begin to contemplate knitting him a whole sweater. With his track record, I assure you, I'm not ever going to try. It would be a total waste of time.

But the light bulb finally went off yesterday. He likes to wear ear warmer headbands when he skis. The one he has now is pretty ratty, so...

I remembered an old, old partial skein of 100% wool worsted tweed in my stash, so I dug it out.

I wanted something that would knit up fast in case it got deep-sixed like so much other stuff, so I decided to knit with the yarn doubled. I looked on-line for a pattern, but didn't find anything that tickled my fancy. I decided to go it alone, knitted up a swatch to get the gauge, did the math, and set to. From swatch to weaving in the ends, it took me about two hours.

Here it is.I rolled it up and tied a gold ribbon around it then stuck it in the fridge on top of his beer. (It's a place he's always bound to look.)

His comments upon finding it were (in order):

"What's this?"

He untied the ribbon and unrolled it. "A headband. I like it, it's a good color."

He tried it on. It fit. "It's not lined. The wind will whistle through my ears."

"And all the way through your head," I wanted to reply.

Ah well, I've got one ball of a very soft and lovely gray merino that I will knit into another headband. I will put it inside of this one and he'll have a fancy-dancy reversible headband.

Which he'd better wear if he wants to live.

Ribbed Ski Headband

Worsted weight yarn, unknown yardage, but less than 3 oz.
Size 13, 16-inch circular needles
Knit with two strands of yarn held together
Gauge: 10 stitches / 4 inches
Finished size: 21 inches circumference by 5 inches

Cast on 61 stitches

Round 1: Slip last stitch cast on onto left side of needle and knit it together with the first stitch that was cast on to make 60 stitches total. Perl one, then *knit one, perl one* until end of round.

Slip a ring on the needle to mark the beginning/end of the round before beginning next round

Rounds 2 & 3: *Knit one, perl one*

Rounds 4 to 13: *Knit three, perl three*

Rounds 14 to 16: *Knit one, perl one*

Bind off.