This headband is a perfect beginner’s fairisle project. It’s suitable for advanced beginning knitters who are comfortable knitting and purling on circular needles in the round. Because the contrasting color is a self striping yarn, there’s no need to use multiple colors of yarn as in traditional stranded knitting. This allows the knitter who is new to fairisle to become comfortable with holding 2 strands of yarn (without color changes) while learning to read a chart.

The child’s version has 4 repeats of 22 sts each across the width of the headband, while the adult’s version has 5 repeats. Each repeat measures 4 inches when measured on a flat surface. If you wish to adjust the size I recommend going up or down a needle size or two, rather than adding or deleting an entire repeat from the headband.

Remember to add your stitch markers while you’re casting on. It makes it much easier when you begin the first row of the chart to have markers already in place (at least it does for me!)

The chart is a two toned color chart, but suffice it to say the white squares represent the main color (MC), and the colored squares represent the contrasting color (CC).

Any worsted weight yarns work well for this pattern, as long as the main color is a solid, and the contrasting color is a self striping yarn.

I originally wrote this pattern to teach stranded knitting at a retreat. If you’d like to use this pattern to teach a class, I have some additional tips that may be helpful. Send me an email and I will pass them along. I only ask that credit be given where credit is due. Thank you!

MATERIALS

• Plymouth Yarn Baby Alpaca Worsted Solids, 1 ball
• Crystal Palace Yarns Mochi Plus, 1 ball
• US 8 Circular Needles, 16”
• 4-5 stitch markers (one should be a different color)