More Bousta, More Beanie

For someone who generally hates knitting two of something, it really didn’t take me long to cast on a second Bousta Beanie! Part of that, I’ll admit, is probably down to some subliminal messaging from the Knit British Podcast about the remakery project. To me, remaking is basically about knitting something you’ve made and loved but tweaking it here and there with any modifications you thought might make it even better – size, yarn, colour, anything!

For this Bousta Beanie, it was all about size. I definitely made my original one too big (which is a bit of a first for me and my big head)! It still fits and I still wear and love it, especially the colours, but I am going to reblock it and see if I can shrink it up a bit to stop it threatening to fly away at the slightest breeze.

I cast on less stitches for my second Bousta Beanie (132 stitches) which is less than on my first attempt (152 stitches) but still more than the pattern (120 stitches) calls for. The fit is pretty close to perfect and I’ll stick with it if I make any more of them! I used stash yarn in 3 of my favourite Jamieson and Smith colours – grey, navy and red. The navy and red are all used up but I’m starting to suspect that this grey may just be never ending!

All in all, a good wee project to use up yarn and remake a hat I adore. A huge thanks to my mum for her pom pom skills, far better than anything I can manage! I can definitely recommend this pattern too, it’s an absolute pleasure to knit. There are very few things I remake but I know this is one I’m going to really enjoy!

Now to sort out the baby blanket sewing… oh dear!

Helpful Information

Pattern – Bousta Beanie by Gudrun Johnson
Modifications – I cast on 132 stitches for the ribbing instead of the 120 specified in the pattern. After knitting the rib, I increased to 156 stitches and just followed the increase row instructions in the pattern and then knitted the 12 extra stitches I cast on. This gave me a great fit for my head (22.5 inches) and kept all the colour work right.
Cast on – long tail cast on. As ever, this video from Wool and the Gang keeps me right.
Cast off – followed the instructions in the pattern for crown decreases and cast off
Colour dominance – I did a night class with Donna Smith last year and that really got me thinking about colour dominance. This tutorial from Ysolda Teague has a really good explanation and examples about how to work out which colours should be dominant. For this hat, I made the grey the background colour and the  red/blue the dominant colours.

Materials

Needles – 3mm Addi Turbo’s for the cast on and changed to 3.5mm needles as instructed by the pattern at the start of chart A
Wool – all colours are Jamieson and Smith 2 ply jumper weight from stash. I used 1 and a bit of the 25g balls of the shade 203 (the best grey) plus remnants of what I think are shade 036 (navy) and 9113 (red). I need a better yarn recording system!