Knitted Headbands: Aran Wool Ear Warmers to Finish Off Winter

The weather has gone all crazy out there and whether it's winter, spring or Autumn weather, I think a warm headband made out of Tweed Aran wool is always a useful accessory, for wearing inside or outside (it keeps hair tidy too, which always gets my vote!).

In order to use up some of my Aran wool, I started knitting these ear warmers, I really like the cable design on the first hairband, I think it makes it look more Irish, which would fit perfectly for Aran tweed yarn like this.

Aran Tweed Headbands

As you can see on the picture, both headbands are of different sizes: the cable one fits my head, but as my head is small (I tend to swim a bit in standard size hats or hairbands!), I think I will make another in the same size as the flower headband. It is knitted straight but using a temporary cast-on, so that I could join both ends using a clean grafting join, which is nearly invisible (it looks just like one row of stocking stitch and doesn't mess up the whole thing with a bulky join).

For the flower headband, I had planned to make it my size too but I took my gauge from a flat knitting piece and I knitted the hairband in the round, which is why I'm getting a difference: it doesn't really matter, because I can list it in my Etsy shop as a Medium-Large size headband and make another smaller one to list as Small-Medium. The flower is made using my new found skill: Crochet.

I can afford to do these ear warmers in 2 sizes as I have quite a bit of that yarn (a giant-sized 400g ball, to be exact!). I will also do them in at least 4 colours, as I have the exact same wool in 4 different colours: Cream, Grey, Green and Blue.

Right now I need to keep my head away from all the online yarn sales (I'm not going to tell you how many times since last week I've had yarn in my basket, only to exit the website telling myself I had to pay off my bills and use up some of my existing yarn first!). I'm sure there will be other yarn sales before my own yarn shelves are empty.

Luckily to keep me busy, I have lots of new headbands to make, an online double-knitting class to study (very excited about this one!), a few patterns to write (I've finished the Craftsy pattern writing class I was enrolled in), and to top it all, there's a nice cabled cardigan I want to knit for myself - which means the kids are next and I'm thinking vests they can wear over a T-shirt but nothing particular in mind yet.


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Cute Baby Headband and Booties

I really wanted to learn an easy way to knit pretty flowers, but what to put them on?

A baby headband, of course! I made this using circular knitting needles and added the flower for extra cuteness.

One of my neighbours recently had a baby girl, so it was the perfect occasion for me to learn baby booties. The pattern for the booties is taken from The Art of Knitting series, while the headband is my own.

All that's left to do now is to get her a nice card and give her this set.

Hand-Knitted Headbands for Sale

Not this one, as, once agin, it was pinched by one of my daughters, but I am knitting a few similar headbands so that I can eventually sell some on Etsy or a similar website; I am also considering Folksy, as it seems to be a bit less competitive, but this is still a work-in-progress, as I waiting to have at least 20-30 items before I can upload these to one of these websites so that my page can look a bit more professional.

For now, here's a sample of my best, knitted using circular needles and baby yarn (because it's so soft and I was actually planning to make baby booties with it, which never materialised (not yet anyway):