Basic Knit Beanie

I remembered my very first knit hat. I was in high school and I wanted to learn to knit a hat for my nephew. The babies always wore this cute little red knit hat. I was pretty proud of it but was discouraged because it took a very long time to make just one baby hat. 

Anyway, I wanted to knit or crochet a few years ago when I started to look into doing newborn photography and wanted those cute little hats. Most of them were crocheted so I started with crochet projects... and I absolutely got hooked!  Every now and then I wanted to learn knitting but everytime I tried, I got discouraged. 

I did make a few hats and tons of scarves using the knitting loom which I thought was so awesome at the time. I quickly realized, I didn't care for it because I didn't feel like I had the freedom to make things using it (I may still be wrong about that!).

Anyway, fast forward to 2015. I decided, it was time to start learning knitting again. I would make it my New Year's resolution and start a little earlier. I purchased the circular needles on eBay (Love eBay!). 

I started with the basic beanie. I found a tutorial here. I'm pretty sure I dropped stitches and or screwed up somewhere because there were holes and gaps in my hat. 

Then I tried making a second one sorta following this tutorial (this one uses straight needle method). I only watched it to figure out how many stitches she casted on for an "adult" size. I am trying to figure out what needle size to use and how many to cast on for the right size beanie. This one turned out really big. It fits my husband's giant head ha-ha.

I wanted to practice on holding the needles in a way that can help me knit faster. I learned using one hand to hold and the other to throw the yarn over the needle. I watched a few videos and figured out how to with the continental knitting style which is comfortable for me and I can go faster! 

Then I finally made one using a larger needle and the same basic stitches (kit one, purl one for brim and just knit all the way up. I added a pom pom too and I loved it! It fits. It's pretty and it was fast to make because the needle was larger and the yarn was chunky.

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