Knitting Machine Guide #2: First Projects (Beanie & Cowl)

The days are slowly getting brighter and spring is starting to feel a little closer. But especially in the mornings, it can still be pretty chilly. Temperatures around freezing aren't unusual in early spring, and that's when it's nice to have something soft and cozy to throw on before heading outside.

That's why, in part 2 of my Addi Express King Size series, we're making two projects that are perfect for this time of year: a cozy cowl using gradient yarn and a two-tone reversible beanie. We'll make the beanie a little longer so you can fold up the brim for a comfortable fit and some extra warmth.

If you haven't used the Addi Express King Size before, you might want to have a look at Part 1 first. I explain how to get started with the machine, how to guide the yarn and what to watch out for when it comes to yarn tension. I also share a few mistakes I made or came across when learning to use the machine, so hopefully you won't have to deal with them yourself.

For these two projects, we won't need any complicated techniques. We'll just be knitting tubes on the machine and turning them into a cowl and a beanie afterwards.

Materials

• Addi Express King Size knitting machine

• Schachenmayr Bravo Originals (50 g / 133 m) in two colors for the beanie (or a similar yarn):

  • Black/grey/white melange

  • Light blue/blue/dark blue melange

• For the cowl: a similar color-changing yarn, preferably something soft that feels nice against your neck

• Scissors

• Tapestry needle

• Measuring tape

• Optional: stitch marker for counting rounds, a label or a pom-pom

Choosing the Right Yarn

I'm using Schachenmayr Bravo Originals for these projects. It's a good choice if you're new to machine knitting because it's easy to work with, doesn't need any special care and gives you fairly even stitches. I also really like how the melange colors look when knitted into a tube.

Something I've noticed with the Addi Express King Size is that the finished size can vary, even when you're using the same yarn. It depends on how you guide the yarn through the machine and how much tension you put on it.

For that reason, I don't like giving an exact number of rounds that everyone has to follow. I'd rather measure the knitting as I go or simply hold it up to check the length. I'll be doing that with both the cowl and the beanie.

Casting On with the Addi Express King Size – Circular Knitting

Start by moving the switch down to the circular knitting position. Unwind some yarn from the ball and let the end hang down through the middle of the machine until it touches the table underneath. The yarn tail will stay inside the tube later, so there's no need to do anything with it right now.

Now wrap the working yarn around the right one of the three black needles at the top.

I'm using a contrasting yarn for the cast-on here. I'll explain what it's for in the next section.

Turn the crank slowly clockwise. For the first round, place the yarn alternately in front of and behind the needles as they come up. This is how you cast on the stitches.

It may sound a bit complicated, but you're really just guiding the yarn by hand. The needles pick it up as you turn the crank. Keep going until you're back at the starting point.

This is what it looks like on the machine:

Once you're back at the starting point, the yarn will be on the outside of the machine. Slide the yarn guide to the left to open it, place the yarn inside and close it again.

Before you start cranking again, check that the yarn guide is closed. If it's still open, you risk damaging the needles.

You can now continue knitting at a steady pace. Be careful not to pull the yarn too tight. It should be really loose!

If the stitches aren't sitting properly on the needles, you can give the knitted tube a gentle pull from underneath.

One thing I always do during the first few rounds is pull the yarn tail down a little whenever I come back to the starting point. This keeps the stitches in place and helps prevent dropped stitches.

Removing the Stitches from the Addi Express King Size

Once your knitted tube is long enough, it's time to take it off the machine. I prefer doing this with a long piece of yarn and a tapestry needle (or the plastic needle that came with the machine).

Cut the working yarn, leaving a fairly long tail, and remove it from the yarn guide. Then bring the yarn over the edge and into the middle of the knitted tube, so it's no longer running along the outside.

Turn the crank one full round without the yarn in the guide. The yarn should already be hanging inside the tube at this point. After that, you're ready to take the stitches off the machine.

Thread the yarn tail onto your tapestry needle. I start at the first needle and then work clockwise around the machine. With the tapestry needle, I go through the stitch that's sitting at the top, lift it off the machine needle and pull the yarn through.

Then I turn the crank a little further until I can reach the next stitch. I repeat this until I've removed every stitch from the machine. They're now all held together by the yarn tail.

Project 1: Cowl with Color-Changing Yarn

For the cowl, we're simply knitting a tube in circular knitting mode. Cast on as I showed you earlier and keep knitting until you're happy with the length.

How long you make it is really up to you. Do you want to wrap it around your neck once or twice? And what yarn are you using?

I decided to use up the whole ball of yarn rather than count out a certain length beforehand. I ended up with 162 rounds. That's enough for me to wrap the cowl around my neck twice, although it fits quite snugly. But that's exactly how I like it.

For the regular version of the cowl, you knit the whole tube with your color-changing yarn and take it off the machine as described earlier.

Leave the yarn tail from casting off quite long, as you'll use it to sew the cowl together. Place the two open ends of the tube against each other, line up the edges and sew them together as flat as possible. Once that's done, weave in the remaining yarn ends on the inside. I try to avoid bulky knots here because they can leave little bumps in the finished cowl.

There's also another way to finish the cowl if you'd like a neater seam. The knitting itself is basically the same, but with one small difference.

Start with a few rounds of contrasting yarn before switching to your color-changing yarn. Knit the length you want for your cowl and finish with a few more rounds of the contrasting yarn.

Take the tube off the machine. This time, you only need to turn the crank for two rounds without any yarn in the guide.

Now comes the important part: Don't remove the contrasting yarn just yet! We'll sew the two ends of the cowl together while it's still in place.

Here's what my cowl looks like after taking it off the machine:

Place the two ends together the way you want the finished cowl to look, making sure the tube isn't twisted.

Now find the point where the contrasting yarn meets your main yarn on both ends. This is where you'll start sewing the stitches together using the Kitchener stitch (grafting).

I continue like this until I've sewn all the way around the cowl. The contrasting yarn stays in place the whole time and keeps the stitches from coming loose.

I find it much easier to join the ends this way because I can see exactly where to insert my needle. I just follow the stitches along the contrasting yarn until I'm back where I started.

Sew the two ends together all the way around, but leave the last 5 cm of yarn quite loose.

The nice thing about joining the ends with the Kitchener stitch is that you end up with what looks like a normal knitted row. With the gradient yarn I'm using here, the seam is hardly noticeable.

You can now carefully pull out the contrasting yarn through those last 5 cm that you left loose. We don't need it anymore because the stitches are already joined.

All that's left is to weave in the yarn ends on the inside. Try to keep them flat so they don't show through the fabric.

I've joined the two ends in the white part of my cowl. If you look closely at the middle, you can just about make out the seam.

Project 2: Two-Tone Reversible Beanie

The reversible beanie is another project where we simply knit a tube, but this time we're using two colors. You'll knit two halves of the same length, one in each color. Later, we'll gather the stitches at both ends and tuck one half inside the other. Depending on which side you turn out, you can wear either color on the outside. With two layers of knitted fabric, it's also lovely and warm.

I'm also making mine a little longer because I want to fold up the brim.

For the length, I don't bother with calculating an exact number of rounds. Instead, I measure how much of my head I want the hat to cover. Then I add the extra fabric I'll need for the folded brim. That extra length is important, otherwise the beanie might end up too short once you fold the brim up.

I also add a little extra length because we'll be gathering the stitches at the top later, which takes up a bit of the fabric.

For my own beanie, I need about 24 cm to cover my head. I'm planning a folded brim of around 6 cm, so I'll add that to the length of each half, plus a little extra for closing the top.

Start by casting on in circular knitting mode, just as we did for the cowl. Then begin knitting with your first color.

Once you've knitted a few rounds, gently pull the fabric into shape in the middle of the machine and measure how long it is.

For my beanie, 60 rounds turned out to be just the right length.

Once your first half is long enough, it's time to change colors. I usually do this right at the beginning of a round. I take the old yarn out of the yarn guide and let it hang down into the middle of the machine. Then I bring the new yarn up from the center and put it into the yarn guide.

For the next five rounds or so, I give both yarn ends a little pull towards the center whenever I pass the color change. It's pretty much the same thing we did when casting on. This helps keep the stitches in place while you continue knitting.

Keep knitting with your second color until you've reached the same number of rounds as with the first one.

To remove the knitting from the machine, I use the same method I showed you earlier. I take the yarn out of the guide, let it hang down into the middle of the tube and crank one more round without the yarn.

After that, I thread the yarn tail onto my tapestry needle and take the stitches off the machine, one at a time. The yarn tail goes through each stitch, so they're all held together once the tube is off the machine.

Now we need to close both ends of the tube to turn it into a beanie.

I start with the end where I finished knitting. Since the yarn tail is already threaded through all the stitches, I just pull it tight until the opening closes completely.

Then I weave the yarn end through the stitches several times to make sure it stays closed and doesn't come undone later.

For the first end of the tube, I use the yarn tail from the cast-on. I pull on it until the opening closes, just like I did with the other end. Once it's closed, I weave in the yarn tail, keeping it as flat as I can.

I folded my knitted tube in half at the color change, making sure that the two colors meet exactly at the bottom of the beanie. This gives me one color on the outside and the other on the inside.

To stop the two halves from coming apart again, I tied the yarn ends at the top together.

Depending on which side you want to wear, you can have either the black melange on the outside and the blue on the inside, or the other way around.

You can also fold up the brim, just as I planned for my beanie. I especially like how the second color shows at the folded edge. With the melange yarn, I think it looks really nice.

So you actually get four different ways to wear the same hat: blue or black on the outside, either with the brim folded up or without.

If you like, you can add a little label to the folded brim. A pom-pom on top would look cute too, although there's one thing to keep in mind: you won't be able to turn the beanie inside out anymore once you've attached it.

And that's it! Your first two projects are finished!

I hope these two beginner projects have helped you get a little more familiar with your Addi Express King Size. If you have any questions or have tried something different yourself, let me know in the comments. I'm always interested to hear how other people get on with their knitting machines.

This was part 2 of my knitting machine series. In the next article, we'll be making headbands and arm warmers.