pepperknit

My new haircut, which is actually a month old, is still taking getting used to. Honestly, I hate it. Detest it. I can’t keep it out of my face, and it never sits quite right. I get lots of compliments, but I think mostly people are inspired to say “ohmigod, you chopped off all your hair!” and then they have to say something nice. I guess I don’t really hate the way it looks, I mostly hate living with it. I’m just twiddling my thumbs until it grows out enough to start cutting to a consistent length, and hopefully someday I’ll have a normal haircut again. But in the meantime I’m making prodigious use of bobby pins to hold it back.

It’s nice to have a little variety, though, so this weekend over the course of a few short hours, I made up this little headband.

Lace Headband
Yarn: Schaefer Yarn’s Anne, originally used for my Pomatomus. Ended up with a nice striping effect with such a narrow band. Used up a miniscule amount of yarn; I don’t know exactly how much.
Needles: 2.25 mm for the I-cord, 2.5 mm for the band
Stitch: Vine Lace, picked out of my gal Barbara Walker’s first Treasury of Knitting Patterns; I believe this is the lace used in the Orangina top so many bloggers have made, but I haven’t ever seen that pattern, just pictures of the FOs.
Started: Saturday, July 8
Finished: Sunday, July 9
Total time: 2 hours? 3?
Pattern: So easy it doesn’t warrant pdf treatment . . .

Cast on 3 stitches. Work I-cord for 5 inches.

Working in stockinette, increase on every knit row until you have 15 stitches. (I did “Make 1″s, M1R on the right hand side [one stitch in], M1L on the left [before the last stitch], but you could just increase into the first and last stitch. Makes no diff.)

Change to slightly larger needles and begin pattern.
Row 1 (WS): Purl
Row 2: K3, yo, k2, ssk, k2tog, k2, yo, k4
Row 3: Purl
Row 4: K4, yo, k2, ssk, k2tog, k2, yo, k3
Repeat until desired length, about 20 inches, or until the band almost meets around your head while being pulled a bit. Depends on the size of your noggin.

Change to slightly smaller needles and begin decreasing.
Decrease at beginning and end of all right-side rows until you have 3 stitches left. (I ssk’d on the right hand side and k2togged on the left, one stitch in, until I had 5 stitches left. The last decrease row went like this: ssk the first two stitches, k1, k2tog the last two stitches.)

Work I-cord for about 5 inches, or to match length of I-cord at other end.

Bind off.

Draw ends into the I-cord. Block it to get it to sit flat.

Wear!