Twisted Headband Knitting Tutorial (Step By Step!)

Today i'll show you how to knit two different headbands with a very simple and stylish twist. The first headband is knit in double stockinette stitch, which yields a double layer of stockinette fabric. The resulting fabric is extra, warm and, unlike regular, stockinette stitch doesn't curl. The next headband is a classic fisherman's rib. It'S super stretchy and cushy, and the ribs really pop and look so dramatic. This is easily one of my favorite stitches. So in this video i'll show you how to knit these two headbands from beginning to end, including some tips and tricks like how to insert a lifeline which will really save your butt. If you make a mistake, this video includes timestamps in the description, so you can easily navigate this video so grab the free pattern in the description and follow along. If you'd like to support this channel, then please consider buying a beautiful pdf file of this pattern. It'S totally optional, but i always appreciate your support for the price of a coffee in a large metropolitan city. It helps to keep this channel running. Who should knit these headbands before you start this pattern? You should be comfortable casting on knitting purling and casting off in this video you'll learn how to knit double stockinette stitch fisherman's rib, how to insert lifelines, which is a very valuable skill how to seam with backstitch and the goldilocks wrap test, which is for testing the Size of your headband for the double stockinette stitch headband. I used one ball of rico essentials: merino dk in the color brick red and a pair of four millimeter needles for fisherman's rib headband. I used one skein of swans island washable wool, sport in the color edgecomb gray, and also a pair of 3.75 millimeter needles. Both headbands will require a tapestry needle tape measure and a pair of scissors all right. So, let's move on to double stockinette stitch with our four millimeter needle we're going to cast on 40 stitches, which i have done right here, or an even number of stitches, depending on how wide or narrow you want your headband to be. It just needs to be an even number of stitches now, just a little note here that the cast on stitches look super wide right now, but after a couple inches the knitting will kind of narrow down a bit double stockinette stitch is really quite simple. The stitch pattern just consists of one row that you repeat over and over again, what we're going to do is knit one. So here we go knit one there we are and then the next thing we're going to do is slip one with yarn in front as if to purl. Now that means we're going to bring our yarn to the front of our work as if we were going to purl and then bring our needle into that second stitch and slip it into the stitch as if we were going to purl from the top to the Bottom, but instead of purling, it we're just going to slip it right off the needle there we go and then we're going to bring our working yarn to the back of the needle okay and that's it for the repeat: we're going to knit one go right back To where the asterisk begins knit one and then slip one with yarn in front, so yarn is in front as if to purl, so we're going to go into this fourth stitch from the top to the bottom, as if we were going to purl slip, it right Off the needle bring the yarn to the back and then continue with the repeat knit one here we go knit one and then bring the yarn up front slip that stitch as if to purl, bring the yarn to the back and then knit one okay. So that's really all there is to double stockinette stitch, so you'll notice that as you knit this, it takes kind of a long time to uh knit, because you are literally knitting one side and then knitting the other side, you're knitting, two layers of fabric. So, that's why it's going to end up taking a bit longer to knit double stockinette stitch. But what you end up with is two sides of stockinette stitch that doesn't curl all right. So we're nearing the end slip, one okay as if to purl knit one and then the last stitch is slipping one as if to purl, and then we're going to bring the yarn to the back. Okay. So now we're on to the next row, which is the exact same okay. The next row is just we're going to knit one okay and then bring the yarn up front slip that stitch as if to purl bring the yarn back. Knit one slip that stitch as if to purl and knit one. So that's all there is to double stockinette stitch continue until your piece is the length that you want, based on the goldilocks wrap test, the best way to figure out how long to knit your headband before seaming is using what i call the goldilocks wrap test. This involves wrapping the headband around your head, so that the two ends meet then feel how it feels against your head. Does it feel too tight? If so, then knit a little bit more and test again? Does it feel too loose then you'll need to unravel what you want is for the headband to feel not too tight, not too loose, but just right, snug, that's the word! I'D use! You want it to feel snug, but comfortable. Once you've hit this sweet spot. Then you are ready to cast off, so lifelines are basically a way to save your work. If you make a mistake, you can rip back your work to the lifeline and then just start knitting from that point rather than having to rip back all the way to the very beginning, which is very, very sad and devastating. So, with stitches like double stockinette stitch and fisherman's rib lifelines are very important. I would not recommend that you knit either of these stitches without inserting a couple lifelines into your project, because it is a real pain in the butt to rip back your work, all right. So we're gon na get out our tapestry needle and just some scrap yarn. So i recommend using a scrap yarn. That'S a bit thinner than the yarn that you are using to knit with all we're. Gon na do is thread the needle through all of the stitches carrying the scrap yarn through those stitches, i'm just inserting the needle into the stitches. So here we go. I think i put it through like five or so so i'm just going to bring the yarn through, leaving that little tail there and then i'm going to continue going into the rest of these stitches. So if you wanted, you could actually move these stitches onto like a circular needle which would make it a bit easier to thread the yarn through, because the cable is much thinner and then continue going into these stitches, i'm kind of working four. At a time. I feel, like that's manageable, and here are the last three: now you have this strand of yarn that is holding your stitches. So if anything should happen further down the line, you can always rip back to this point because your stitches are being held on this lifeline. All right, so at this point you can just ignore the lifeline, bring your working yarn back to the front and just start knitting as normal okay. So this is double stockinette stitch, so i would just knit one bring the yarn to the front slip it off. The needle as if to purl so you're, just ignoring the lifeline, do not knit into it just act like it doesn't even exist. So here you can see the lifeline that we've inserted and after i've knit a couple rows. Let'S just say i make a mistake and i need to rip back so take the needle off and then unravel my knitting until we hit the lifeline, and now i can't go any further because the lifeline is holding my stitches now you can pick up those stitches By literally following the lifeline, so i'm just going to grab the lifeline and kind of pull upwards, and that brings up all of the stitches. So i can see them clearly and now all i would do is start picking up those stitches. The last stitch awesome. So now i've got all the stitches back onto my needle and now i don't really need the lifeline anymore, so i can just pull it right off and now i can continue knitting. How often you insert a lifeline is totally up to you, the more confident you are, the less frequently you'll need a lifeline if you're feeling a bit nervous then consider inserting a lifeline every two or three inches until you get the hang of the stitch. Now we're ready to cast off and seam our headband together, so basically we're going to bind off in pattern. So first i'm going to knit one okay and then the next stitch would have been a slip. One purl y. So here i'm slipping one purlwise, bringing the yarn back and then bringing the first stitch over the second stitch. Okay and then here's a knit one and we'll do the same first over the second. The yarn goes in front. This is the purl, so we're going to slip that over bring the yarn to the back slip, the first over the second okay. So, let's cast off until we have one stitch left on our needle binding off in pattern. Just creates a really nice even edge, as you can see here when you bind off using just a regular bind off. I find that the edges kind of splay out and it's not quite as neat so now, i'm going to get out my scissors and i'm going to just leave a really long like almost like 10 or 12 inches and then snip it right off and then use That yarn to grab that last stitch and bring it over the yarn and then pull the yarn through and secure that bind off edge all right so before we seam i'm going to weave in the cast on end. So i've got this little tail here. So i'm just going to get out my tapestry needle and thread up that tail end and because this is double stockinette stitch. I can actually hide the tail end right in between the two layers of fabric. So i'm just going to push the needle in to the corner right here and then i'm going to push the needle out right here and then just pull the yarn through tug it in there we go so now. This yarn is secure in between these two layers of fabric, and i can just snip this right off all right. So now, let's decide which side of the headband is going to be the right side and which is going to be the wrong side. So the right side of the headband faces out it's going to be the side that everybody sees and the wrong side is going to be facing your head. So i'm taking a look here - and i see there's this little kind of a small dent here where i made a little bit of a mistake and i didn't fix it. So this is going to be my wrong side, and this is going to be my right side all right, so once you've decided, you want the right side of the headband to face upwards. So what we're going to do is fold the two ends of your headband. Together like this, so that the two edges meet and then you're going to move the headbands closer together and once they meet you're, going to open up these little arms, okay and then they're just going to give each other a hug, this smooshy little hug. Until it's almost like a little sandwich, so you want to make sure that all four of these arms or edges are kind of flush with each other they're just kind of even like this, then we are going to seam them with this strand of yarn. Now i'm going to take out my tapestry needle i'm just going to thread it up with that long strand of yarn. So now we're going to seam all four of these layers together using a stitch called backstitch alright, so i'm just going to turn it around. So it's a little bit easier for me and what we're going to do is just use our needle to pierce into all four layers. So here we go. I'M just going to go into these three layers right at the edge here great and then i'm going to go a little ways forward like this and i'm going to make sure that i grab all four layers here. We go great pull that through and now i'm going to go a little bit back. Okay, so i'll go tiny bit back pierce all four layers like this: pull it through and then go a little bit forward: okay, pierce all four layers. Just like that, and then on the bottom side, we're gon na go a little bit back okay. So this is a very secure stitch. Probably the most secure stitch in hand sewing. So here we go we're going to go a little forward, a little forward right on the edge here here we go and then a little ways back on the front. Okay, go a little bit forwards here, making sure i'm piercing all four layers: okay and then a little bit back. You can do a little tug after you go through just to make it sure that it's secure so a little forwards and then a little bit back and once i get to the end, i'm just going to do a couple small stitches just to kind of secure. This strand of yarn and then put the needle through that loop i've made give it a little tug, maybe do another stitch just through the fabric, pull it through snip off that yarn strand and now, let's unfold our headband and see what it looks like all right. So here we go, this is the seam that we have just made, and it's created this beautiful little twist, so go ahead and try this headband on for size. This is how you seam up a headband for a beautiful twist, and you can use this seaming technique for any headband, including the fisherman's rib, and any other stitch pattern that you like next up is fisherman's rib. So i'm going to use a pair of 3.75 millimeter needles and i'm going to cast on 25 stitches or an odd number of stitches, depending on the width that you want now. The cast on width is going to seem really wide, but when you stretch it across your head it will actually become thinner. Alright, so i've got 25 stitches cast on and now let's work the setup row all right. So the setup row is basically just purling. All of your stitches - and that is easy enough - all right, so we're nearing the end of the setup row and here's my last purl stitch great all right. So let's turn the needle over and work row, one all right. So row one starts with a knit one. Here we go knit one and then we start the repeat. So everything between the asterisks is what we repeat. So it goes asterisks and then it goes purl one here we go so there's a purl one and now it says knit into stitch below now. That sounds weird and crazy, but i'll basically explain what it means so rather than knitting into the stitch like this, which is what we normally do, we're actually going to knit into the stitch below. So you would look for the little v shape right here right, underneath the stitch so not into not into the stitch here, okay, but to the stitch directly, underneath it okay into that right into the v we're going to stab into the v and then knit into That stitch below and then drop it off the needle. It'S going to feel weird and scary, but just just work with me here: okay, all right! So we're going to repeat that from the asterisks go right back to the asterisks, which is a purl one. Okay, easy enough and then knit into stitch below okay, so we're not going into this stitch. This is a normal stitch, we're going into the stitch directly underneath it. Okay, sticking our needle right into the stitch like that and then knitting into it and then dropping it off the needle so to better illustrate knitting in the stitch below i've got this little swatch here of fisherman's rib and i'm going to do the first two stitches Doing a knit and a purl here we go all right so now we are going to knit into the stitch below. So, as you can see, the stitch right here, that's on my needle is the active stitch. So we're not going to knit into it not what we want to do. What we want to do is knit into this v-shape directly below the active stitch. That would be this stitch right here: okay, this little v-shape. So i'm going to just stab my needle directly into it. You can see it going through the other side and then wrapping my needle around pulling the stitch through that little v-shape and dropping it off okay. So that's all there is to knitting into the stitch below. Let'S do that again, so i've just done a purl stitch and now we're on to the next knit stitch. Okay, the stitch wrapping around the needle is not what we want to knit into. We want to knit into the v shape the stitch directly below it. That would be this guy right here, so i'm just going to stab into it and knit into the stitch off the needle all right. So that's all there is to fisherman's rib and knitting into the stitch below and now we are to the last two stitches and we're just going to do a purl one and a regular knit one so not knitting into the stitch below just a normal knit one. Alrighty, so that is the first row: okay, so let's move on to row, two row two starts with a purl one, great purl one and then we're going to knit into the stitch below okay. So here we go. This is our active stitch on the needle, and this is the stitch right below it. You can see this little v shape, i'm gon na stab into it and knit one and then off the needle, okay and then purl one and then knit into the stitch below. Okay, so let's take a look here: just bring our needle right underneath that stitch okay into it and then knit into it and that's pretty much it purl one knit into the stitch below. So you don't even really need to refer to your pattern. All you need to remember is to knit into the stitch below on the knits okay. So this is a knit stitch. I can see the little v shape here, so i'm going to knit into the stitch below and when you encounter a purl stitch you would just purl it okie dokie. So here's our last stitch and we're just going to purl one alrighty. So these two rows make up fisherman's rib, all right, so repeat, rows one and two until your headband is the length that you like, as you knit fisherman's rib, insert lifelines into your work. This is a quick and easy way to ensure that if you make a mistake, you can unravel safely without dropping stitches. Unraveling fisherman's, rib blind is very terrible. So go back to this time stamp in the video to watch a demo on lifelines to figure out how long to knit the headband use the goldilocks wrap test go back to the time stamp here, where i demo, how to do it and then come back here To cast off once you've got the length you like, then we're ready to cast off. So i'm just going to do like a regular one by one rib bind off i'm going to knit one and then purl the purl, stitches, okay and then bring the first stitch over the second stitch. Okay, knit one first over the second stitch, i'm going to purl the purl stitches, so i'm not bothering to knit into the stitch below when i'm binding off. Just a regular one by one rib bind off will do so continue binding off until you have one stitch left on your bind off, i've got one more stitch left and there we are okay. So now i have one stitch left on my needle and i'm going to take out my scissors and i'll just kind of eyeball around like 10 or 12 inches and snip that right off, then i'm going to bring the yarn over the needle and then bring the Stitch over the yarn and pull the yarn through that stitch and tighten up that cast off edge cool. So here we are now. We are ready to seam this bad boy together, once you've cast off, then you are ready to seam the twist go back to the time stamp here to watch how to seam once you're done seaming, your headband will look like this. So beautiful we covered how to knit fisherman's, rib and double stockinette stitch headbands, but you can experiment with any stitch. You like here, i've knit up samples in seed, stitch and rib stitch, to give you some ideas and to get your creative juices flowing thanks. So much for watching, i hope, you've made a beautiful twisty headband that you are now wearing on your adorable head. Alright, if you like this video, then please like it and subscribe for more videos like this one, i'm davina from sheepandstitch.com thanks for watching, keep warm and safe and i'll see you in the next one bye. You