Easy Loom Knit Beanies

One of my new year resolutions this year is to be more charitable. I wanted to put my new found hobbies into good use by helping out others in one attempt to leave this world better than I found it. In looking for a way to incorporate my crafts into a charitable endeavor, I found this program called HeadHuggers, run by a very nice lady, Sue. She accepts handmade caps and distributes them to hospitals all over, for patients who are undergoing treatment that result into hair loss. There are other programs just like this all over the web if you're interested. Here are a few that I found.

HeadHuggers
Knitting Pals By The Bay
Stitches From The Heart
Newborns in Need
More Charity Links


For my first donation of caps, I decided to make a few of these basic beanies using the knifty knitter. Here's how to make it.

Materials:

Yarn - thickness depends on how warm you want it.
Knifty Knitter Round Looms
Blue for infant
Red for child
Green for adult
Yellow for large adult

How to:

1. Tie the yarn to the outside peg. You'll want to be able to take this off so make sure you can do that... I like to do a crochet chain for the hook.

2. With the pegs facing you and the outside peg on top, start doing e loops (loops that mimic the cursive letter e) around each peg working clockwise.

3. When you've completed one full revolution, push down all of the e loops and go around again.

4. There should now be two loops on each peg of the loom. Turn the loom so the pegs are facing outside, and for each peg, start pulling the bottom loop over the top loop and off the peg. Continue this on all the pegs. This is called knitting off.



5. Now there should be only one loop left on each peg. Wrap the loom again with e loops all the way around (like #2). And Knit off again. Repeat til the knitted part is twice the length of the brim of the hat you want. I made the brim of this hat only about an inch so I knitted til it was about 2 inches.

6. To make the brim, you would, pull up the end of the knitted portion and bring the first row of knits that you did above the peg (from the inside).

7. You should now have two loops on each peg. The first row and the last row that you've knitted. Knit this off.


8. Repeat #5 again til you've reached the length of the beanie that you want to make.

Closing using the gather method

9. Cut the yarn, leaving about a 6 inch tail. Cut another piece of yarn, let's say 1.5 times around the loom.

10. Use the needle that was provided with the loom set and thread the 1.5 length yarn thru it. If you have a hard time putting the yarn thru the needle hole, you can use a small piece of tape to flatten the yarn. Afterwards, just snip that small piece off.

11. Use the needle to thread the yarn thru all of the loops on the pegs. You can begin to remove the already threaded loops off of the peg to give you some slack.

12. When all of the loops are threaded and off the loom, invert the hat so that the hat is inside out.

13. Hold one of the yarns that you threaded thru, and pull so that the end bunches together. Tie a double knot tight. Tie a few more knots with the 6 inch piece that was originally cut and the threaded pieces. Cut all yarns close to the knots. I like leaving small tails of about half an inch to an inch.

That's it. Invert the hat and it's ready to go. (Well, almost, I like to wash it first before I give it away)


If you're interested in donating to some of these charities, check out the websites above, they usually have email addresses to inquire more info from. There's much that can be done to help.

For a bit of variation, try a beanie with a visor.

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