After taking a break from beanie knitting, I have been playing around with Bendigo Woollen Mills' recently released 16ply yarn, a recycled mix of natural fibres. I bought three colours to experiment with, then ordered several balls in cream thinking it would knit quickly into a few spare beanies.
As I had not knitted 16ply before, size adjustment was needed. I looked up standard beanie sizes. My own head is small, and while I made allowances, most of those I knitted veered small, so I wanted to skew a few towards large. To work this out, I looked up standard sizes, which gave the circumference of a large beanie as 59-61cm. Since it is easier to measure it flat, I began with the flat version of the hat, a bit slower to knit, but required if the pattern has more than two colours. One or two colours are more easily knitted in the round.
As I progressed, family members expressed astonishment at the emerging size, and when it was large enough to hold against my own head, my daughter and I fell about laughing, my daughter insisting the only use was a tea cosy. I considered it. 
With some nervousness I decided to call upon my steeking skills. I had the distance between the motifs to play with to the left of the red scales, , so I cast off 10 stitches, then worked a sharp crown decrease. When the piece was finished I ran a row of machine stitching from the cast-off section to the band - and cut it off. I stitched the edges together by hand - very securely! The circumference is now 56cm.
A typical beanie height, is, apparently, 20-25 cm. This one is now 23cm (before a tassel!). It still looks huge, but it does at least conform to standard sizing. I'm looking for a big head to test it on.
For comparison, I found a Bendigo pattern for a beanie in this yarn and knitted a beanie in the round using the number of stitches they recommended at the cast-on, but following my pattern.
The result is a hat with a circumference of 48cm and a height of 23cm. I suspect this is quite adequate for most larger heads, but at this stage I'm guessing. I might still have a tea cosy on my hands.
I was moved and embarrassed last week when there was a question in the South Australian Parliament about the Walk for Justice, and I was mentioned in the Attorney's reply.
Bless his little cotton socks! (no, no, I'm not knitting socks!).
