It's Really Easy: Design and Knit Your Own Earwarmer

Last week I wrote about adapting the bottom edge of a sweater pattern to suit your body type. This week I want to encourage you to design and knit something all by yourself: an earwarmer. This is a very fast and easy project. If you live in a cold climate in the Northern Hemisphere, you'll be able to wear it before winter is over. In fact, you'll be able to try some variations and finish them, too.

There are two ways to do earwarmers: The earwarmer can wrap around the head like the bottom of a hat, or it go around the head like one of those old hippie headbands, with flaps extending down to cover the ears, called, I believe, earflaps. Let's work on the first one, since it's easier to design.

There are also two ways, at least, to knit an earwarmer: Make it like the bottom of a hat, knitting in the round for 2" or 3", however wide you would like the earwarmer to be. Or knit a straight piece of fabric 2" to 3" wide as long as you want the earwarmer to be. That's really all there is to it, but I will talk about some details.

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A simple earwarmer:

First, make a swatch with a somewhat thick yarn, and measure your gauge, or stitches per inch. This is a great project for leftover yarn.

Measure the intended head. Place the tape measure around the head as if it were an earwarmer, going under the hair at the back of the neck and over the ears. My daughter, Isabel (I told her I would put her name in the article), has a head that is 22" around. I think this is about average - she can pick up a hat from a store and wear it. I have a fat head. I cannot wear store-bought hats unless they are quite large, which is one of the reasons I knit! My head is 23-l/2" around.

If you want to make the knitted-in-the-round earwarmer in ribbing, make it 1-1/2" smaller than the head measurement, since it will stretch. So the earwarmer for Isabel's 22" head is 20-1/2" around.

If your gauge is 4 stitches to an inch, you would then multiply the gauge by the number of inches around, for example, 20-1/2 (or 20.5 on the calculator) x 4. This equals 82 stitches. Cast on 82 stitches. Knit in K2,P2 ribbing (or K3,P3) for 2" to 3". Cast off. Weave in the two ends and you're done!

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