The knitting pattern for Juniper Stretch Beanie, a bulky knit hat with stretch you won’t believe, is now available!
This hat is one of my personal favorites. I’ve been wearing it and selling finished versions of it at craft markets for over a year. The biggest selling point of the Juniper Stretch Beanie is the unbelievable amount of stretch it has, which makes it super comfy for so many sizes, from tweens to adults.
Download Juniper Stretch Beanie on Ravelry and on Etsy
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Juniper Stretch Beanie is knit in super bulky yarn, so it can be whipped up in just a few hours if you’re a fast knitter. I used Lion Brand Wool Ease® Thick & Quick® Yarn in the color Seaglass. This yarn is super popular for a reason — it’s easy to work with, washes and wears well, comes in so many beautiful colors, and is affordable.
But if you want to try something different, here are some other yarns that my amazing test knitters used in their samples.
Juniper Stretch Beanie Yarn Substitutes:
- Rasta by Malabrigo Yarn
- Heartland® Thick & Quick® Yarn by Lion Brand
- Hometown Yarn by Lion Brand
- Buttercream Luxe Craft Alpaca Solids Yarn by JOANN
- Buttercream Cozy Yarn by JOANN
This hat is also a great pattern for advanced beginner knitters (or adventurous beginners!) It’s basic knit and purl stitches until a few k2tog and ssk at the crown. And if you haven’t knit a hat before, this is a fun pattern to try because it’s very repetitive, giving you time to perfect your stitches and practice.
As you can see, there’s a lot that I love about the Juniper Stretch Beanie. But most of all, I love its incredible amount of stretch — so much so that it had to go in the name! My head circumference measures on the larger side of average, and I can’t tell you how many hats I’ve tried on at stores over the years just hoping that they would fit “well enough” for me to buy them. Now, those are often non-knitted hats, so they didn’t have any stretch to them. But sometimes knitted hats can be small on me, too.
Juniper Stretch Beanie is structured as a variation on ribbing, some of the most stretchy stitches out there. Think of your sweater sleeve cuffs: if they’re ribbing, they fit well around your wrists but are comfortable to slide over your hands and can probably stretch two to three times bigger than the rest of your arm.
That’s exactly how the Juniper Stretch Beanie works: it measures approximately 17″ around unstretched, but can stretch up to 25″. So it’s comfortable for everyone from teens to adults and straight hair to curly hair. It’s also a great unisex hat pattern because of this.
I recommend using a stretchy cast on method when you make your Juniper Stretch Beanie so you can maximize this main feature of the hat. The Twisted German Cast On is a great option, and here is a helpful tutorial to learn that cast on.
More details about the Juniper Stretch Beanie, including measurements and needle size, are available on the Juniper Stretch Beanie Pattern Page.
Download Juniper Stretch Beanie on Ravelry and on Etsy
If you make this hat, please share on Instagram with the hashtag #JuniperStretch and tag me @KnitJulep. I’ll try to share each of your projects!
Happy knitting!
Kim
knitjulep.com 