Triangulum Lacy Knitted Headband Pattern
Quick to knit and easy to wear, this comfy lacy knitted headband will accessorize beautifully with your hair as well as with your spring-, autumn-, and winterwear, for a stylish triple threat that will keep your hair tamed and your ears warm like only something this fluffy could.
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I love wearing stuff in my hair. Sometimes the idea of it is way prettier than the result — like how I can’t actually pull off those scarf-wrapped updos or jewelry-enhanced braids to save my life… and not just because my hair is barely level with my shoulders. But the main thing is that that doesn’t deter me from
(a) refining my go-to styles, or
(b) still trying new things on a whim.
Head, Meet Lacy Whim
Aside from wrapping my head in ribbons of all colors and widths, one of the things I’ve been loving to pieces lately is trying my hand (or head, I guess) at headbands. Not those ribbed, sporty, chunky, knit-them-in-an-hour deals, but sweet, delicate, feminine headbands that are basically just a teensy step up (or sideways, even) from a weightier silk scarf.
And do you know what adds a gorgeous touch of delicacy to knits?
Yep, you got it in one: it’s lace.
I adore lace. I love knitting it, and I definitely love wearing it. And that — plus a little bit of leftover angora yarn — was basically all I needed to start working up this lacy knitted headband.
(Sidenote: does anyone else feel like doing shots for every time they need to repeat a keyword in their content, or is it only my liver that’s thankful for this little thing called impulse control?)
The Lacy Knitted Headband Pattern
Comprising just 14 rows knitted over 15 stitches — actually 13 plus the two edge stitches either side — this pattern* is insanely quick to knit, and manages to combine just the right amount of casual and sophisticated for a very pretty, very universally flattering look.
(*I was supposed to repeat “lacy knitted headband pattern” here, if you were keeping track of my would-be liquor shots.)
Because I worked up this lacy headband using a soft, slippery angora yarn (not even kidding about the slippery, btw — keep tight track of your stitches if you’ve never worked with angora or mohair before!), on knitting needles that are designed especially for lace knitting, my tools and materials actually helped that speed along.
You’re done with every row before you know it… And thus with every pattern repeat before you know it, too.
I don’t wanna say lazy weekend project, but if you do have a couple of long, rainy evenings at home, or a handful of extra-long waiting times to contend with, this knitting project has your name written all over it.
Plus, bonus! With the holiday season fast approaching, it may have someone else’s name written all over it, too, because this sweet, cozy knitted headband would make a fantastic, gorgeous stocking stuffer or similar little gift!
What’s more, this lacy headband pattern is perfect for beginner knitters, because it’s a very easy, absolutely painless way to get the hang of
knitting lace.
knitting cables (or, just the one, but it still goes).
keeping an even tension across your rows.
As if that wasn’t all, the end result is very cute, it’s done up very quickly, and it’s something that’s wearable about half the year round.
The Triangulum Lacy Knitted Headband
At last, the meat of the matter. In other words, let’s get down to the actual pattern side of things.
Supplies You Need
To knit up the Triangulum lacy knitted headband, you’ll need:
A lightweight angora yarn, or similar — I used Rowan Angora Haze, mainly because I started knitting this on a whim and I had about a half a ball of this decadent fluff left over from a different project.
I’m actually quite terrible at eyeballing, so I may be either under- or overshooting here, but… This lacy knitted headband pattern maybe used up about 30 yards of yarn, so you can likely knit a good four, if not five headbands per ball. Not bad for something that literally weighs less than half an egg.
Meanwhile, I don’t think I need to mention this necessarily, but just in case. If you’re looking to knit this for someone with breathing issues, or for a small child, please substitute a non-fuzzy wool for this yarn, because angora fluff can come loose and get in your face, i.e. up your nose or in your mouth, as easily as not. Better safe than sorry, in any case.
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A pair of knitting needles — I used a pair of 2.5 mm circular needles; they’re a pinch smaller than the needle size that’s listed on the yarn, but I like tinier stitches by nature, so smaller needles are my jam. You do you, of course; just make sure you check your gauge, as far as your row height, while you work, in order to determine how many pattern repeats you’ll need.
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A small (i.e. 2.5 mm) cable needle, one time.
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A tapestry needle, to weave in the ends.
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A big towel and a handful of pins, to block your headband.
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2 pairs of hooks and eyes, for headband fastening purposes. If you want to forego the fastening aspect, use your tapestry needle and the tail end of your yarn here to stitch the two ends together after you’ve blocked the headband.
Notions You Need
To knit up the Triangulum lacy knitted headband, you’ll need to know how to:
cast on stitches using the cable method.
knit and purl stitches.
do a yarn-over stitch.
work decreases, both in
ssk — “slip-slip-knit” = slip the first stitch knitwise off the left-hand needle, then slip the second stitch knitwise; insert your left-hand needle into both slipped stitches and knit them together.
k2tog — “knit two together” = insert your right-hand needle into the next two stitches on your left-hand needle, and knit them together.
weave in yarn tail ends and block a finished piece of knitwork.
How to Size Your Lacy Knitted Headband
This is normally the part where a pattern provides you with a tension swatch. In this case, that’s pretty pointless. Since the ease yielded by this knitted fabric is fantastic, and we’re talking about a headband to boot, you don’t need an absolutely exact fit.
You do, on the other hand, absolutely need to block, by the way, since we’re lacing, but we’ll get to that in a sec.
How I Sized My Pattern
Just for reference, one full pattern repeat for me measures about 4.5 cm, or roughly 1.8 in. So it’s going to sound a little bit crazy when I tell you that I worked 14 repeats of this lacy pattern to make my headband. Because I do not have a huge head (not even metaphorically).
However, I have been blessed with a pretty full, pretty fluffy head of hair, and it’s hair that I don’t particularly want to squish when I adorn it with accessories. Hence an absolutely oversized headband that would probably slide off my head to perch onto my shoulders if I had very fine, straight hair instead.
How you can customize the length of your lacy knitted headband
Decide on the length you want based on
how loosely or how tightly you personally knit.
how tightly or loosely fitting you want your finished headband to be.
the actual yarn you end up using.
A whole three scoops of criteria, wow! Use these to pick how many pattern repeats you do in each half of the headband.
But what if you feel like your required length isn’t covered by either of these options?
Let’s say reducing the number of repeats would make it too short, while working a full set of repeats would make it too long. No worries, you still have two other alternatives.
You can either go up one or two needle sizes, or you can just compensate by adding 2 or 4 stocking stitch rows at the very start and the very end of your headband.
That will help you modulate the length while keeping the actual pattern intact. Because, again, people don’t really tend to look at the back of your neck when you’re wearing something, just to police how impeccably perfect it looks.
The Optional Cable
All told, I designed this lacy knitted headband to be symmetrical around a single, central cable twist. By default, that means an equal number of mirrored lace pattern repeats on either side of the cable — 14, in my case; 12, in the pattern I’ve written up for you.
Obviously, if you don’t care about the cable twist or the symmetry idea, you can either just
knit the first half of the lace pattern in as many repeats as you need to get your desired length,
or you can work an unequal number of lace pattern repeats on either side of the central cable. That could look super whimsical and cute.
As a final aside, the lace pattern itself happens to be symmetrical, meaning the two halves of each row are going to be neat little mirrors of each-other. That’s particularly handy for when you want to check your work, because you’ll be able to instantly spot if your row looks the same on either side of your central stitch.
The Triangulum Lacy Knitted Headband Pattern
Cast on 15 stitches, preferably using the cable method.
Begin knitting the first half of the lace pattern:
row 1 — slip first stitch knitwise, knit to end (careful! on the first row, right after you’ve cast on, knit all stitches, including the first one!);
row 2 — slip first stitch knitwise, purl 13, knit last stitch;
row 3 — slip first stitch knitwise, knit to end;
row 4 — slip first stitch knitwise, purl 13, knit last stitch;
row 5 — slip first stitch knitwise, slip-slip-knit, knit 4, yarn over, knit 1, yarn over, knit 4, knit two together, knit 1;
row 6 — slip first stitch knitwise, purl 13, knit last stitch;
row 7 — slip first stitch knitwise, slip-slip-knit, knit 3, yarn over, knit 3, yarn over, knit 3, knit two together, knit 1;
row 8 — slip first stitch knitwise, purl 13, knit last stitch;
row 9 — slip first stitch knitwise, slip-slip-knit, knit 2, yarn over, slip-slip-knit, yarn over, knit 1, yarn over, knit two together, yarn over, knit 2, knit two together, knit 1;
row 10 — slip first stitch knitwise, purl 13, knit last stitch;
row 11 — slip first stitch knitwise, slip-slip-knit, knit 1, yarn over, slip-slip-knit, yarn over, knit 3, yarn over, knit two together, yarn over, knit 1, knit two together, knit 1;
row 12 — slip first stitch knitwise, purl 13, knit last stitch;
row 13 — slip first stitch knitwise, slip-slip-knit, yarn over, slip-slip-knit, yarn over, slip-slip-knit, yarn over, knit 1, yarn over, knit two together, yarn over, knit two together, yarn over, knit two together, knit 1;
row 14 — slip first stitch knitwise, purl 13, knit last stitch.
(Please note: when you download the pdf version of this lacy knitted headband pattern, you’ll get the shorthand notation of these rows.)
Work this lace pattern for 6 repeats.
Work the cable:
Right side row — slip first stitch knitwise; knit 1, slip 6 stitches on cable needle and hold at back of work; knit 5 stitches off your left-hand needle; knit the 6 stitches off the cable needle; knit 2.
Wrong side row — slip first stitch knitwise, purl 13, knit last stitch.
Next, knit 4 rows in stocking stitch.
Begin knitting the second half of the lace pattern:
(And to think, your brain had just gotten used to this pattern right-side up!)
row 1 — slip first stitch knitwise, knit two together, yarn over, knit two together, yarn over, knit two together, yarn over, knit 1, yarn over, slip-slip-knit, yarn over, slip-slip-knit, yarn over, slip-slip-knit, knit 1;
row 2 — slip first stitch knitwise, purl 13, knit last stitch;
row 3 — slip first stitch knitwise, knit two together, knit 1, yarn over, knit two together, yarn over, knit 3, yarn over, slip-slip-knit, yarn over, knit 1, slip-slip-knit, knit 1;
row 4 — slip first stitch knitwise, purl 13, knit last stitch;
row 5 — slip first stitch knitwise, knit two together, knit 2, yarn over, knit two together, yarn over, knit 1, yarn over, slip-slip-knit, yarn over, knit 2, slip-slip-knit, knit 1;
row 6 — slip first stitch knitwise, purl 13, knit last stitch;
row 7 — slip first stitch knitwise, knit two together, knit 3, yarn over, knit 3, yarn over, knit 3, slip-slip-knit, knit 1;
row 8 — slip first stitch knitwise, purl 13, knit last stitch;
row 9 — slip first stitch knitwise, knit two together, knit 4, yarn over, knit 1, yarn over, knit 4, slip-slip-knit, knit 1;
row 10 — slip first stitch knitwise, purl 13, knit last stitch;
row 11 — slip first stitch knitwise, knit to end;
row 12 — slip first stitch knitwise, purl 13, knit last stitch;
row 13 — slip first stitch knitwise, knit to end;
row 14 — slip first stitch knitwise, purl 13, knit last stitch.
Work this lace pattern for 6 repeats.
Cast off with the right side facing you, then cut your yarn about 12 cm / 5 in from your work, to leave yourself a good tail end. Think about how you want to close your headband — eyes and hooks at separate ends, or simple, closed loop piece — and prepare to block.
Sew in your eyes and hooks if you’re using them, weave in all ends, and block.
If you prefer joining the two ends of your headband together, block it first. Then, thread the tail end of your yarn through your tapestry needle and use it to neatly stitch the two edges of your lacy knitted headband together.
Whatever your choice, blocking is paramount.
Yes, there’s the typical spiel about how blocking is important because it helps your yarn bloom and your piece look actually finished, but in this case there’s more to it than that.
Now this is something you’ll notice as you knit. Through no fault of your own, the edges of your headband are gonna start curling inward, even dramatically. It’s like an angora trademark.
And while it’s cute (or it can be) to look at your knit piece and see it flat on your needles but turning into a fluffy snake further down, that makes it unwearable straight off the weaving-in.
What’s more, let’s not forget this is a lacy knitted headband. Meaning it has one job, and that’s to look holey and light. Not really something we can get knitted lace to do without wet shaping and slow drying to really settle into and show off its full shape.
So if you want a gorgeous, flat lacy knitted headband that both displays its airy structure and upholds the actual band part it’s meant to be doing, you need to block.
Lay out a sturdy towel, folded thickly so your pins have a good cushion to stick into. Grab yourself a bowl of lukewarm water and mix in a drop of conditioner.
Put your lacy knitted headband in the water, and get your pins ready. After you’ve gotten your headband soaked through, take it out of the water without squeezing or wringing and place it on your towel.
Pin the headband into place, stretching it gently outward to show off the lace to its full effect. Use the fingers of one hand to hold the lace “open” while you work the pins in with your other hand.
Bribe yourself for patience if you have to, but let your headband dry fully before you unpin.
Click here to grab your pdf download of this pattern, and let me know on Insta or in a comment if you knit this! I look forward to seeing what you’ll make!
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